Books  in 
General 


Books  in  General 
By  Solomon  Eagle 


New  York  :   Alfred  A.  Knopf 

MCMXIX 


Printed  in  Great  Britain 


ARTURO    WAUGH 


2081323 


Preface 

THESE  papers  are  selections  from  a  series 
contributed  weekly,  without  intermission, 
to  the  New  Statesman  since  April  1913.    I 
do  not  feel  that  the  responsibility  for  reprinting 
them  rests  on  my  shoulders  ;   I  trust  that  where 
it  does  rest  it  will  rest  lightly.     I  shall  have  done 
all  I  hope  to  do  if  I  have  produced  the  sort  of 
book  that  one  reads  in,  without  tedium,  for  ten 
minutes  before  one  goes  to  sleep. 

The  pseudonym  "  Solomon  Eagle,"  I  may 
explain,  is  not  intended  to  posit  any  claim  to 
unusual  wisdom  or  abnormally  keen  sight.  The 
original  bearer  of  the  name  was  a  poor  maniac 
who,  during  the  Great  Plague  of  London,  used 
to  run  naked  through  the  street,  with  a  pan 
of  coals  of  fire  on  his  head,  crying  "  Repent, 
repent." 

S.  E. 


Contents 

Who's  Who,  ii 

Political  Songs,  16 

An  Oriental  on  Albert  the  Good,  21 

Epigrams,  27 

An  Eminent  Baconian,  33 

The  Beauties  of  Badness,  37 

More  Badness,  48 

A  Mystery  Solved,  52 

Carrying  the  Alliance  too  far,  54 

May  1914,  56 

May  1914:   The  Leipzig  Exhibition,  62 

The  Mantle  of  Sir  Edwin,  67 

"  The  Cattle  of  the  Boyne,"  73 

August  1914,  75 

Mrs.  Barclay  sees  it  through,  79 

A  Topic  of  Standing  Interest,  85 

Was  Cromwell  an  Alligator  ?,  90 

The  Depressed  Philanthropist,  96 

A  Polyphloisboisterous  Critic,  101 

"Another  Century,  and  then  .  .  . ,"  105 

Herrick,  no 

The  Muse  in  Liquor,  116 

£5  Misspent,  122 

Shakespeare's  Women  and   Mr.  George  Moore, 

126 
Moving  a  Library,  131 


Contents 

Table-Talk  and  Jest  Books,  134 

Stephen  Phillips,  138 

Gray  and  Horace  Walpole,  143 

A  Horrible  Bookseller,  149 

The  Troubles  of  a  Catholic,  153 

The  Bible  as  Raw  Material,  155 

How  to  avoid  Bad  English,  159 

Woodland  Creatures,  163 

Other  People's  Books,  168 

Peacock,  172 

Wordsworth's  Personal  Dullness,  174 

Henry  James's  Obscurity,  179 

The  " Ring"  in  the  Bookselling  Trade,  184 

Music-Hall  Songs,  190 

More  Music-Hail  Songs,  195 

Utopias,  200 

Charles  II  in  English  Verse,  205 

The  Most  Durable  Books,  210 

The  Worst  Style  in  the  World,  214 

The  Reconstruction  of  Orthography,  220 

Mr.  James  Joyce,  225 

Tennessee,  230 

Sir  William  Watson  and  Mr.  Lloyd  George,  233 

Stranded,  237 

Mr.  Ralph  Hodgson,  242 

Double  Misprints,  245 

The  History  of  Earl  Pumbles,  246 

On  Destroying  Books,  251 


10 


Who's  Who 

WORKS  of  reference  are  extremely  useful ; 
but  they  resemble  Virgil's  Hell  in  that 
they  are  easy  things  to  get  into  and 
very  difficult  to  escape  from.  Take  the  Encyclo- 
paedia. I  imagine  that  my  experience  with  it  is 
universal.  I  have  only  to  dip  my  toe  into  this 
tempting  morass  and  down  I  am  sucked,  limbs, 
trunk  and  all,  to  remain  embedded  until  sleep  or 
a  visitor  comes  to  haul  me  out.  A  man  will  read 
things  in  the  Encyclopaedia  that  he  would  never 
dream  of  looking  at  elsewhere — things  in  which 
normally  he  does  not  take  the  faintest  interest. 
One  may  take  up  a  volume  after  lunch  in  order 
to  discover  the  parentage  of  Thomas  Nashe ; 
but  one  does  not  put  it  down  when  one  has 
satisfied  one's  curiosity.  One  turns  over  a  few 
pages  and  becomes  absorbed  in  the  career  of 
Napoleon.  Thence  one  drifts  to  the  article  on 
Napier,  which  sends  one  to  that  on  Logarithms 
in  another  volume  ;  and  when  night  closes  in 
and  (as  we  used  to  construe  it)  sleep  brings  rest 
to  weary  mortals,  one  still  sits  in  one's  chair, 
bending  heavy-eyed  over  the  book,  with  a  dozen 
pressing  duties  left  undone  and  the  last  post 
missed.  By  that  time  one  has  reached,  perhaps, 
the  abnormally  complex  diagrams  which  illus- 

II 


Books  in  General 

trate  the  article  on  Metaphysico-theologico- 
cosmolo-nigology — of  which  science,  the  reader 
will  remember,  Voltaire  was  the  father  and  Herr 
Doktor  Pangloss  the  first  professor. 

Who's  Who  takes  me  in  the  same  way.  Ordi- 
narily I  have  no  particular  thirst  for  it.  I 
should  not  dream  of  carrying  it  about  in  my 
waistcoat  pocket  for  perusal  on  the  Underground 
Railway.  But  once  I  have  allowed  myself  to 
open  it,  I  am  a  slave  to  it  for  hours.  This  has 
just  happened  to  me  with  the  new  volume,  upon 
which  I  have  wasted  a  valuable  afternoon.  I 
began  by  looking  up  a  man's  address  ;  I  then 
read  the  compressed  life-story  of  the  gentleman 
next  above  him  (a  major-general),  wondering, 
somewhat  idly,  whether  they  read  of  each  other's 
performances  and  whether  either  of  them  re- 
sented the  possession  by  the  other  of  a  similar, 
and  unusual,  surname.  Then  I  was  in  the  thick 
of  it.  There  was  nothing  especially  exciting 
about  most  of  the  information  that  met  my  eye. 
Generally  speaking,  the  biographies  were  of 
people  of  whom  I  had  never  previously  heard, 
and  whose  doubtlessly  reputable  achievements 
had  been  recorded  in  spheres  as  unfamiliar  to  me 
as  the  dark  side  of  the  moon.  What  can  it  mean 
to  me  that  Mr.  J.  Fitztimmins  Gubb  worked  for 
five  years  under  Schmitt  at  Magdeburg  and  is 
now  demonstrator  in  Comparative  Obstetrics 
at  the  Robson  Institute  ?  Or  that  the  Bishop 
of  the  Cocos  Islands  has  been  five  times  married 

12 


Who's  Who 

and  was  educated  at  King  Edward  VI  Grammar 
School,  Chipping  Chester,  and  Pembroke  College, 
Oxford  ?  Yet  I  read  of  some  six  or  seven 
hundred  such,  and  found  it  as  difficult  to  refrain 
from  "  Just  one  more "  as  would  a  wealthy 
dipsomaniac  just  parting  from  an  old  friend  in  a 
public-house  at  five  minutes  before  closing  time. 
I  cannot  easily  account  for  the  attraction. 
Something,  I  suppose,  may  be  put  down  to  the 
fact  that  character  comes  out  in  a  man's  account, 
however  bald,  of  himself ;  and  that  the  Who's 
Who  autobiographies,  in  spite  of  their  compres- 
sion, exhibit  many  and  diverse  interesting  traits 
of  character.  But  mainly,  I  think,  it  must  be 
that  we  most  of  us  have  collector's  mania  in 
some  form  or  another,  and  that  one  cannot 
resist  the  temptation  of  collecting  facts  even  when 
they  are  so  irrelevant  and  of  so  little  importance 
to  one  that  they  slip  through  one's  fingers  as 
soon  as  one  has  gathered  them.  For  I  am  sure 
that  I  do  not  know  now  whether  I  have  got  the 
number  of  the  Bishop's  wives  right,  or  the  sites 
of  his  education,  or  even  the  name  of  his  diocese. 

I  suppose  that  no  one  ever  tells  an  untruth  in 
Who's  Who.  There  is  not  much  scope  for  it, 
though  it  is  conceivable  that  there  may  have  been 
exaggerations  of  the  truth.  The  compilers  are 
extremely  capable  ;  and  the  contributors  seem 
to  be  as  uniform  in  their  veracity  as  they  are 
various  in  their  loquacity.  Only  in  rare  circum- 
stances could  any  one  hope  to  impose  on  Who's 

13 


Books  in  General 

Who  without  very  rapid  detection.  An  oppor- 
tunity of  that  nature  did  once  occur  to  me. 
There  is  a  compilation  called  the  American 
Who's  Who,  published  (if  I  remember  correctly) 
in  Chicago.  By  some  curious  accident,  which  I 
have  never  been  able  to  explain,  its  conductors 
got  hold  of  my  name — I  don't  mean  "  Eagle," 
but  the  other.  By  some  accident  more  curious 
still  they  got  the  impression  that  I  was  an 
American  settled  in  London  ;  and  with  admirable 
enterprise  they  sent  me,  for  two  or  three  years  in 
succession,  yellow  forms  on  which  I  was  requested 
to  inscribe  my  age,  antecedents,  and  accomplish- 
ments. Each  year  I  was  dazzled  by  the  idea  of  a 
joke  which,  I  felt,  would  immensely  amuse  me, 
and  which  could  (so  the  Devil  argued)  hurt 
nobody.  On  each  occasion  I  filled  the  form 
exhaustively.  I  put  down  my  name  and  address 
correctly ;  but  beyond  that  not  a  word  of  truth 
did  I  tell.  I  invented  for  myself  a  career,  a 
career  not  imposing  enough  to  arouse  suspicions, 
but  far  more  picturesque  than  my  actual  career 
has  been.  I  described  my  parents  as  being 
Homer  E.  -  -  and  Anna  P.  -  — ,  of  St.  Louis, 
Mo.  I  copied  out  of  an  American  minor  poet's 
autobiographical  preface  a  list  of  academies 
at  which  I  had  been  educated  ;  and  then  I 
launched  out. 

I  had,  I  stated,  left  America  for  Europe  at  the 
age  of  nineteen.  I  had  written  (I  was  cunning 
enough  to  put  down  the  names  of  one  or  two  of 
H 


Who's  Who 

my  actual  works)  such  and  such  books,  including 
a  Manual  (for  Schools)  on  Political  Economy 
and  a  small  brochure  on  Polycarp.  I  had 
travelled  over  four  continents  ;  my  recreations 
were  "  all  forms  of  sport,  especially  big-game 
hunting "  ;  I  had  gone  through  the  Balkan 
War  as  a  volunteer  with  the  Greek  Army;  and 
I  possessed  several  decorations,  including  the 
Blue  Boar  of  Rumania,  the  St.  Miguel  and  All 
Angels  of  Portugal,  and  the  fourth  class  of  the 
Turkish  Medjidie.  Notice  the  fourth  class ; 
no  common  liar  would  have  thought  of  so  con- 
vincingly modest  a  claim  as  that.  Each  year,  as 
I  say,  I  lived  laborious  days  in  the  delineation  of 
an  imaginary  pedigree  and  a  supposititious  career. 
Then  I  broke  down.  There  was  no  risk  of 
punishment  attached,  and,  I  take  it,  small  risk 
of  discovery.  But  my  softer  self  began  telling 
me  that  it  was  a  scandalous  thing  to  hoax 
foreigners ;  that  the  trick  was  unworthy  of  an 
Englishman,  or,  indeed,  an  adult  of  any  na- 
tionality, down  to  the  most  backward  of  Nicobar 
Islanders  ;  and  that  the  only  fitting  punishment 
for  a  person  addicted  to  such  practices  would 
be  to  have  pins  put  upon  his  chair  by  his  chil- 
dren or  his  back  chalked  by  infants  in  the  street. 
I  weakened  and  broke ;  sentiment  overcame 
reason  ;  my  heart  gained  the  victory  over  my 
head.  And  each  year,  with  reluctant  delibera- 
tion, I  tore  up  the  well-filled  sheet  and  destroyed 
again  my  other  self,  my  American  self,  the 
romantic  self  who  had  done  the  things  I  had 

15 


Books  in  General 

never  done,  who  had  stalked  the  bear  in  the 
snowy  fastnesses  of  the  Caucasus  and  won  the 
gratitude  of  exotic  potentates.  The  forms  have 
stopped  coming  now ;  but  the  memory  of  my 
vision  still  burns  with  a  melancholy  yet  tender 
brightness ;  and  those  mythical  progenitors, 

Homer  E. and  Anna  P.  ,  are  to  me  all 

that  his  Dream  Children  were  to  Charles  Lamb. 


Political  Songs 

IF  one  goes  up  a  mountain  and  surveys  all 
the  kingdoms  of  the  world  one  sees  a  good 
many  horrible  things.  Few  of  them  are 
worse,  in  their  way,  than  the  modern  political 
song.  There  have  been  bad  political  songs  in  all 
ages.  Caesar's  soldiers  used  to  sing  some  which 
were  not  merely  uninspiring  but  irrelevant,  and 
Lilli  Burlero  (or  Lillibulero)  itself  was  no  great 
shakes  as  a  poem  although  its  tune  had  a  swing. 
But  there  have  never  been  any  to  equal  in  badness 
the  kind  of  songs  that  has  been  generated  by  the 
British  party  system.  The  only  modern  politi- 
cians who  ever  manage  to  generate  a  good  song 
are  the  Socialists.  Socialist  song-books,  in 
spite  of  their  plenitude  of  hack  phrases  about 
chains  and  freedom's  dawn,  always  have  a  good 
deal  of  tolerable  poetry  in  them.  William 
Morris's  political  songs  are  excellent,  and  some 
of  the  modern  foreign  Socialist  songs  are  really 
16 


Political  Songs 

worthy  expressions  of  the  movement.  When 
their  words  are  not  good  their  tunes  are  :  witness 
the  Internationale  and  that  stirring  Italian 
labour  song  that  is  now,  I  believe,  prohibited  by 
King  Victor's  Government.  But  the  kind  of 
songs  that  our  good  Liberals  and  Conservatives 
sing  at  their  meetings  are  gruesome. 

I  hold  in  my  hand — as  the  saying  goes — the 
Liberal  Song  Sheet  now  being  used  at  big  party 
meetings.  One  or  two  of  the  more  facetious 
ditties  show  some  ingenuity,  and  there  is  a 
certain  go  about  the  first  line  of  "  Stamp,  stamp, 
stamp  upon  Protection  "  ;  but  for  the  rest  the 
only  song  the  writer  of  which  would  not  get  a 
birching  in  any  properly  constituted  society  is 
Ebenezer  Elliott's  God  Save  the  People,  which  is 
generations  old.  "  Let  who  will  make  a  nation's 
laws  as  long  as  I  make  its  songs,"  said  some  writer. 
One  might  add  :  "  Let  who  will  make  a  nation's 
songs  as  long  as  they  are  not  done  by  the  people 
who  make  its  laws."  Caucus-provided  laws 
may  be  all  right,  but  caucus-provided  songs, 
written  by  party  agents  and  under-secretaries, 
are  not  successful. 

The  chief  characteristic  of  the  Liberal  songs, 
apart  from  their  metrical  and  linguistic  pecu- 
liarities, is  their  insistence  upon  incongruous 
military  image.  Imagine  Mr.  Asquith  donning 
bright  armour  and  taking  part  in  the  incidents 
depicted  in  these  verses — to  the  tune  of  Who  will 
o'er  the  Downs  ? 

B  17 


Books  in  General 

Our  leaders,  tried  and  trusted  men, 

Still  love  the  ancient  faith, 
To  Freedom  and  to  Conscience  true 

In  danger  and  in  death. 
And  they  have  donned  their  armour  bright, 

Their  courage  all  aglow, 
To  lead  the  toilers  of  the  land 

Against  the  Tory  foe. 

For  years  we've  suffered,  'pain  and  loss, 

By  privilege  oppressed  ; 
Our  birthright  has  been  filched  from  us 

And  left  us  sore  distressed. 
But  now  our  leaders — trusted,  tried — 

Are  keen  to  strike  a  blow, 
And  wrest  our  stolen  acres  from 

The  proud,  disdainful  foe. 

It  is  not  my  business  to  discuss  the  justness  of 
the  judgments  here  implied,  but  what  on  earth 
is  the  point  of  suggesting  that  Mr.  Asquith,  Mr. 
George,  Mr.  Lulu  Harcourt,  Lord  Haldane,  and 
so  on,  are  true  "  in  danger  and  in  death "  ? 
They  may  have  come  unscathed  through  the  fire 
of  Suffragette  dog-whips,  but  nobody  calls  them  to 
die  for  disestablishment.  There  is  here  an  utter 
lack  of  reality,  a  lack  that  must  prevent  these 
songs  from  moving  anybody  to  action,  as  good 
songs  should  do.  They  are  as  conventionally  false 
as  the  cheapest  kind  of  leading  article. 

Here  are  some  more  extracts  from  the  same 
source  : 
18 


Political  Songs 

We  defend,  the  right  we  won  in  ages  past ; 

We  demand  the  measures  by  the  Commons  passed, 

Let  no  Lords  presume  to  wreck  the  work  at  last, 

For  we  go  marching  on. 
Freedom  for  our  trade  and  nation 
From  all  insolent  vexation, 
For  democracy's  salvation 
We  all  go  marching  on. 

Peers  and  lories  may  to  wreck  the  work  unite, 
Britain's  sons  for  Britain 's  freedom  still  shall  fight ; 
None  shall  binder  us  till  triumph  is  in  sight, 
As  we  go  marching  on. 

'Then  up  to  the  sky  with  your  Hip-hip-Hooray  ! 
For  the  unbeaten  leader,  who  leads  us  to-day, 
For  ASQUITH — to-day,  after  long,  weary  years, 
Our  victorious  Captain  o'er  Tories  and  Peers. 
Then  cheer  with  a  will  for  the  great  deed  is  done  ; 
Attacking  the  Veto,  we've  fought  and  we've  won  ; 
Henceforward  these  islands  of  ours  are  to  he 
Not  the  Land  of  the  Peers  but  the  Land  of  the  Free. 

Long,  long  in  shameful  slavery 

The  emerald  isle  hath  lain, 
The  victim  of  past  knavery, 

And  Unionist  disdain. 
But  Freedom! s  day  is  coming — 
See  how  the  foemenJLee  ! 
Home  Rule  is  just 
And  come  it  must 
To  set  old  Ireland  free  / 

'9 


Books  in  General 

One  blow  will  end  the  matter  ! 
Strike,  strike  it  with  a  will ! 
The  enemy  we'll  scatter 

And  quickly  pass  our  Bill. 
Our  leaders  are  determined, 
True  followers  are  we, 
Our  arms  are  strong 
To  right  the  wrong 
And  set  old  Ireland  free. 

A  curious  thing  is  that  almost  universally  in  these 
songs  the  virtues  and  actions  of  the  party 
leaders  get  almost  as  much  attention  as  the 
political  questions  at  issue.  This  is  the  mark  of 
the  caucus. 

It  is  a  very  difficult  thing  to  write  a  good 
propagandist  song  at  all.  A  first-rate  tune  will 
often  cover  up  the  most  prosaic  words,  but 
generally  speaking  political  songs  split  on  the 
rock  of  the  specific.  It  is  the  greatest  mistake 
to  expect  to  stir  people  with  verses  dealing  with  a 
particular  Bill.  The  spirit  of  freedom,  the  spirit 
of  revolt,  the  passion  of  love,  or  the  passion  of 
hate,  may  make  good  songs,  but  it  is  a  hopeless 
task  to  try  to  make  poetry  out  of  the  taxation  of 
land  values  or  an  import  duty  on  corn.  A  good 
Socialist  song  may  deal  with  brotherhood  or 
service,  but  it  cannot  deal  with  "  the  nationaliza- 
tion of  the  means  of  production,  distribution,  or 
exchange."  One  should  avoid  the  kind  of 
concrete  details  that  produce  a  sense  of  anti- 
climax, and  the  kind  of  personalities  that  sound 

20 


An  Oriental  on  Albert  the  Good 

false.  The  spirit  of  Liberty  may  appropriately  be 
depicted  in  a  helmet,  but  it  is  silly  to  conjure  up 
a  picture  of  Mr.  Asquith  with  a  suit  of  armour 
over  his  frock-coat.  Even  the  fact  that  a  thing 
is  glaringly  true  does  not  necessarily  make  it 
suitable  for  metrical  statement.  It  is  true  that 
there  is  an  insufficient  supply  of  sanatoria  and 
that  the  thought  profoundly  moves  many  people. 
But  a  song  emphasizing  the  fact  must  be  a 
failure.  Modern  political  song-writers  fail  (i) 
because  they  are  usually,  people  who  cannot 
write  verse  at  all,  (2)  because  they  try  to  make 
their  songs  like  extra-rhetorical  speeches  or 
articles.  Probably  the  next  Liberal  song  will 
deal  with  the  ravages  of  pheasants. 


An  Oriental  on  Albert  the  Good 

THE  award  of  the  Nobel  Prize  to  Mr. 
Rabindranath  Tagore  is  generally  ap- 
proved. I  do  not  entirely  agree  with 
those  who  think  that  Mr.  Tagore's  poems  are 
masterpieces  in  English  ;  for  I  find  his  English 
poetical  prose  monotonous  and  without  rhyth- 
mical beauty,  although,  in  a  sense,  immaculate. 
But  those  who  know  the  Indian  originals  say 
that  they  are  really  great,  and  that  they  have 
got  a  hold  on  the  general  population  unprece- 
dented for  centuries  past. 

21 


Books  in  General 

I  have  just  acquired  a  book  by  an  Indian  poet 
who  was  not  so  wise  in  his  choice  of  subjects  as  is 
Mr.  Tagore.  The  book  is  an  English  version 
(made  in  1864  by  the  tutor  of  Sir  J.  Jeejeebhoy's 
sons,  and  published  by  the  Bombay  Education 
Society)  of  an  Epic  on  the  Prince  Consort  by  the 
Parsee  poet  "  Munsookh."  The  poem  is  enliven- 
ing if  not  inspiring. 

It  opens  with  the  usual  Oriental  invocation  to 
Heaven,  ending  "With  that  remembrance  alone 
will  I  fill  the  cup  of  my  heart  and  sing  new  and 
entertaining  stones."  It  then  plunges  straight 
in  medias  res  with  a  first  canto,  "  On  the  birth 
of  Prince  Albert,  his  education  and  arrival 
at  mature  years ;  and  his  wish  to  marry 
Victoria." 

"  There  is  a  country  of  the  world  called  Ger- 
many, the  eminence  of  which  is  known  every- 
where. In  its  interior  is  a  large  district  called  the 
Dukedom  of  Gotha,  about  thirty-seven  miles  in 
area,  and  containing  about  one  hundred  and  fifty 
thousand  inhabitants.  The  air  of  this  district 
is  pleasant,  dry,  and  cool ;  and  the  water  re- 
freshing and  pure.  The  land  is  good  and  very 
fertile,  and  every  article  of  food  and  clothing  is 
cheap  there.  In  its  neighbourhood  is  the  city  of 
Coburg,  where  the  richest  blessings  of  Providence 
display  themselves,  near  which  flows  the  river 
Itz,  and  where  is  a  magnificent  ducal  castle, 
having  the  appropriate  name  of  Rosina,  with  a 

22 


An  Oriental  on  Albert  the  Good 

garden  entirely  surrounding  it.     Here  the  birth 
of  Albert  took  place." 

Prince  Albert  grew  up  wise  and  studious,  and 
at  last  his  preceptor  said  to  him  :  "  My  accom- 
plished pupil,  this  is  the  one  hope  of  my  soul, 
that  thou  make  a  hearty  effort  to  be  united  to  the 
worthy  heiress  of  the  Kingdom  of  England,  and 
if  thou  do  this,  thou  wilt  not  be  disappointed. 
.  .  .  Put  in  action  therefore  the  effective  dagger 
of  contrivance  ;  engraft  speedily  the  plant  of 
love  .  .  .  lose  not  thy  time,  for  if  thou  do  thou 
wilt  be  considered  a  fool." 

Queen  Victoria's  portrait  was  sent  to  Albert, 
the  bearer  telling  him  that  he  was  searching 
the  world  for  a  worthy,  loving,  and  religious 
prince.  "Thou  hast  administered  the  medicine 
for  my  secret  pain,"  was  the  reply,  and  the 
Prince  wrote  a  letter  acknowledging  the  present. 
"  When  I  would  write  thee  a  letter,"  he  said, 
"  the  water  of  my  eyes  flows  from  my  pen  instead 
of  the  black  ink.  ...  In  my  feeling  of  love 
for  thee  I  am  mad  :  I  am  a  moth  flying  around  a 
candle.  .  .  .  Though  I  swim  always  in  a  flood 
of  tears,  my  body  is  burning  to  a  cinder."  When 
Victoria's  mother  heard  about  this  she  was  glad, 
but  said  that  "  the  hearts  of  the  English  people 
are  intoxicated  with  haughtiness  ;  they  despise 
a  stranger  and  a  foreigner  .  .  .  nor  will  they 
consider  it  honourable  that  thou  should  be  united 
in  love  to  a  child  of  Germany."  Various  letters 

23 


Books  in  General 

passed,  but  Albert's  father  was  astonished  at  his 
rashness.  "  Foolish  boy,  heretofore  engrossed 
in  eating,  drinking,  and  learning.  Where  didst 
thou  get  this  information  and  these  notions  ?  .  .  . 
A  nation  proud  and  haughty  like  the  English 
will  think  thee  thoroughly  mad."  But  letters 
from  England  convinced  the  Duke ;  he  ad- 
monished his  son  as  to  his  future  behaviour  ;  and 
the  party  sailed  for  the  port  of  London,  where 
"  Victoria  immediately  went  upon  the  terrace." 
The  lovers  met  and  sang,  and  the  Prince  returned 
home  to  complete  his  studies.  "  A  little  time 
after  this  occurrence  the  Queen  again  remem- 
bered Albert ;  she  caused  a  letter,  official,  and 
according  to  rule,  to  be  written  to  his  father." 

"  Albert's  father  prepared  himself  at  once, 
taking  necessary  provisions,  furniture,  and 
money.  Having  sat  in  a  boat  Prince  Albert 
went  forward  accompanied  by  his  family.  The 
gallant  vessel  floated  down  the  stream,  and  did 
not  leave  her  track  on  the  way.  From  a  distance 
she  appeared  like  an  alligator,  or  like  the  moon 
of  the  second  day  sailing  through  the  heavens, 
or  like  a  tree  growing  in  the  midst  of  deep  waters, 
casting  its  shadows  as  it  moved  in  a  hundred 
directions ;  or  she  was  like  a  horse  leaping 
without  feet,  and  bound  only  to  the  surface  of 
the  water,  so  swift  and  lofty  of  mien  that  the 
sun  from  afar  uttered  a  shout  of  approbation. 
As  a  lover  weeps  on  account  of  separation  from 
his  beloved,  so  the  ship  beating  her  breast,  filled 
24 


An  Oriental  on  Albert  the  Good 

her  skirts  with  water.  She  sometimes  appeared 
from  her  motion  tired  and  weary,  and  the 
bubbles  about  her  seemed  like  blisters  on  the 
feet.  In  body  she  was  a  strong  negress,  but  in 
speed  lively  ;  in  her  womb  were  hundreds  of 
children,  yet  did  she  never  bear." 

"  Albert  thought  the  waves  were  like  an  in- 
furiated elephant,"  but  he  arrived  safely,  and  the 
marriage  was  celebrated  amid  general  rejoicings. 

"  The  voice  of  triumph  arose  from  every  side 
with  guns  and  bells  and  bands  of  music  ;  in 
every  house,  too,  arose  the  heart-charming 
sounds  of  cornets,  flutes,  harps,  pianos,  and 
singing  of  various  sorts  ;  cannons  boomed  from 
every  fort — one  making  a  whirring  noise,  another 
a  noise  like  thunder.  ...  So  pure  became  the 
waters  of  the  Thames  that  one  could  see  in  them 
the  image  even  of  the  soul  of  his  body.  It  was 
not  a  river,  but  as  it  were  a  flower  garden  ;  and 
the  bodies  of  the  fishes  glittered  like  rose-leaves. 
Everywhere  were  clusters  of  variously  decked 
boats  ;  the  vessels  were  as  shaking  mountains, 
which  made  graceful  motions  like  peacocks 
coquetting  in  the  garden  of  Paradise." 

A  great  banquet  followed,  and  when  "  the 
reign  of  wine  "  was  finished  the  music  began. 
"  Trombones  sounded  so  impressively  that 
letters  were  imprinted  upon  the  face  of  the  air." 
Then  came  the  dancing.  "  What  shall  I  say  of 

25 


Books  in  General 

the  Mendozas  and  Polkas  ?  for  the  philosophic 
and  the  pious  lost  their  peace  of  mind  through 
them.  .  .  .  The  Polka  was  kept  up  with  such 
zest  and  excitement  that  there  was  a  stir  among 
the  angels  of  heaven.  ...  In  short,  the  ball  was 
gracefulness  itself  which  made  the  stars  bite 
their  own  bodies  with  jealousy."  The  dead  rose 
up  from  the  ground  enamoured  of  the  dancing, 
and  the  lamps  put  their  hands  over  their  eyes. 
The  festivities  over  the  royal  pair  retired  and 
sang  to  each  other. 

Next  year  a  princess  was  born,  and  all  England 
was  merry.  Other  children  followed,  and  for 
twenty  years  the  royal  pair  lived  in  happiness. 
In  1843  the  Queen  and  the  Prince  revisited  his 
native  country  in  a  ship  furious  as  a  leopard,  that 
broke  through  hundreds  of  whales.  Home  awoke 
tender  thoughts  in  the  Prince.  "  Collecting 
himself  he  sang  "  a  chant  comparing  himself  to 
Joseph,  and  his  bride  to  Zuleika — which  indicates 
a  somewhat  different  view  of  the  Potiphar's 
wife  episode  from  that  prevalent  in  Occidental 
circles.  The  rest  of  the  work  is  mainly  taken 
up  with  the  Great  Exhibition,  the  Prince's  death, 
and  numerous  maxims  for  the  use  of  his  son, 
such  as : 

"  King  must  keep  entirely  aloof  from  several 
hurtful  things  as  ...  chess. 

"  A  king's  country  is  like  a  beautiful  woman, 
and  the  merchants  of  that  country  are,  as  it 
were,  the  precious  jewels  and  ornaments  of  that 
26 


Epigrams 

woman  ;  and  the  more  these  jewels  and  orna- 
ments are,  the  more  heart-charming  and  beauti- 
ful she  looks." 

This  last  aphorism  is  disputable. 


Epigrams 

A'TY  one  who  reads  Mr.  R.  N.  Lennard's 
charming  little  anthology  of  English 
epigrams  in  the  Oxford  Garlands  Series 
will  regret  that  the  practice  of  writing  poetical 
epigrams  has  died  out.  Until  the  Victorian 
age  almost  all  professional  writers,  as  well  as 
many  amateurs,  tried  their  hands  at  epigram. 
If  you  had  anything  especially  offensive  to 
say  about  any  one — and  especially  about  poli- 
ticians, doctors,  and  ladies  unduly  addicted  to 
cosmetics — it  was  the  natural  thing  to  put  it 
into  a  couplet  or  a  quatrain.  Ministers  and 
Privy  Councillors  used  to  compose  epigrams 
about  each  other ;  but  who  can  imagine  Sir 
Henry  Dalziel  writing  witty  quatrains  about  Sir 
Alfred  Mond,  or  vice  versa  ?  Why  the  habit  has 
died  out  I  don't  profess  to  say.  There  may  be 
some  significance  in  the  fact  that  the  great  age 
of  epigrams  was  the  eighteenth  century — the 
prose  age  -par  excellence.  There  is  probably 
more  in  the  decay  of  knowledge  of  Greek  and 
Latin.  When  almost  every  educated  man  was 
familiar  with  the  Greek  Anthology  and  the 

27 


Books  in  General 

works  of  Martial — whence  all  kinds  of  epigrams, 
elegiac,  amatory,  and  satirical,  descend — it  was 
perhaps  natural  that  the  temptation  to  continue 
the  good  work  should  be  generally  felt.  It  may 
even  be  that  a  form  so  small  is  incapable  of 
infinite  variety  and  grows  exhausted.  Johnson 
wrote  a  ludicrous  burlesque  epigram — 

If  the  man  who  turnips  cries 
Cry  not  when  his  father  dies, 
^lis  a  proof  that  he  had  rather 
Have  a  turnip  than  his  father. 

— and  there  is  undoubtedly  sound  criticism  in  it. 
After  a  certain  time  the  making  of  epigrams  may 
proceed  almost  on  a  formula.  At  all  events, 
the  decline  of  the  epigram  is  obvious.  The 
well-meant  effusions  which  the  late  Sir  Wilfrid 
Lawson  used  to  waft  across  the  benches  of  the 
House  of  Commons  were  scarcely  equal  to  the 
old  level  of  our  political  quips  ;  it  is  very  rarely 
that  a  tolerable  metrical  epigram  appears  in  the 
Press  ;  and  the  poets  have  almost  all  abandoned 
the  habit  of  attempting  to  get  their  thoughts  into 
so  small  a  compass.  The  custom  of  composing 
epigrams  for  private  albums  is  virtually  extinct. 
Every  schoolgirl  writes  in  every  other  school- 
girl's album  that  there  is  nothing  Original  in 
her  excepting  Original  Sin  ;  and  even  that  not 
very  splendid  mot  was  constructed  by  Thomas 
Campbell  nearly  a  hundred  years  ago.  The  rest 
is  silence. 
28 


Epigrams 

The  greater  number  of  our  epigrams  are  satiri- 
cal, and  Mr.  Lennard's  selection  is  mainly 
composed  of  these  verses  with  stings  in  their 
tails.  One  of  the  most  taking  of  these  is 
A.  Evans's  on  a  Fat  Man  : 

When  Tadlow  walks  the  streets,  the  paviours  cry 
"  God  bless  you,  sir/"  and  lay  their  rammers  by. 

But  that,  perhaps,  is  not  really  stinging  ;  if  Mr. 
Tadlow  was  good-tempered,  he  must  have  liked 
it  himself.  Good  couplets  like  these  are  few, 
but  Coleridge's  on  the  Swan-Song  is  one  : 

Swans  sing  before  they  die — "'twere  no  bad,  thing 
Should  certain  persons  die  before  they  sing. 

The  most  brutal  epigrams  we  have  are  Byron's  on 
Castlereagh's  suicide,  after  that  statesman  had 
cut  his  throat.  These  are  not  very  good,  but 
Mr.  Lennard  gives  them  ;  and,  in  fact,  almost 
every  famous  epigram  in  the  language.  He 
classifies  them  under  headings :  "  Political," 
"  Professional  and  Trading,"  "  Amatory,"  and 
so  on.  Of  the  Literary  epigrams  one  of  the  best 
is  Bishop  Stubbs's  on  two  of  his  nineteenth- 
century  contemporaries  : 

Froude  informs  the  Scottish  youth 
That  parsons  do  not  care  for  truth. 
The  Reverend  Canon  Kingsley  cries 
History  is  a  pack  of  lies. 

29 


Books  in  General 

W 'hat  cause  for  judgments  so  malign  ? 

A  brief  reflection  solves  the  mystery — 
Froude  believes  Kingsley  a  divine, 

And  Kingsley  goes  to  Froude  for  history. 

Lord   Erskine's   on    Scott's   Waterloo    Poem   is 

good  : 

On  Waterloo's  ensanguined  plain 
Lie  tens  of  thousands  of  the  slain, 
But  none,  by  sabre  or  by  shot, 
Fell  half  so  flat  as  Walter  Scott. 

Theodore  Hook's  epigram  suggesting  that  it 
would  be  impossible  to  find  a  reader  who  would 
pay  for  the  binding  of  Prometheus  Unbound  now 
falls  as  flat  as  Scott,  owing  to  the  utter  falsifica- 
tion of  the  prophecy. 

Mr.  Lennard  gives  a  fair  number  of  epitaphs, 
including  Evans's  well-known  one  on  Vanbrugh 
and  Gay's  even  better-known  one  on  himself. 
But  I  don't  think  we  have  in  English  an  epitaph 
so  delightful  as  that  written  for  his  own  tomb 
by  the  obscene  French  poet  Piron  : 

Ci-git  Piron 

Qui  ne  fut  rien. 
Pas  meme 

Academicien. 

Landor's  "  I  strove  with  none,  for  none  was 
worth  my  strife,"  however,  could  not  be  surpassed 
30 


Epigrams 

by  any  serious  epitaph.  From  Landor  Mr. 
Lennard  has  naturally  had  to  draw  freely  for 
his  more  serious  sections.  Landor  came  nearer 
than  any  English  writers  to  rivalling  the  feats  of 
the  best  Greek  epigrammatists.  Many  people 
would  say  that  his  Dirce  is  the  most  beautiful 
epigram  in  the  language. 

Mr.  Lennard's  selection  is,  as  I  have  said,  a 
very  good  one.  The  only  old  one  I  miss  is 
Richard  Bentley's  on  German  scholarship  : 

The  Germans  in  Greek 
Are  sadly  to  seek  ; 
Not  one  in  Jive  score, 
But  ninety-nine  more. 
All,  all  except  Hermann — 
And  Hermann's  a  German. 

The  omission  is  the  stranger  in  that  Landor's 
greatly  inferior  epigram  on  Germans  is  included. 
About  the  longest  poem  admitted  is  dough's 
revised  version  of  the  Ten  Commandments : 
it  is  flat  in  places,  but  contains  one  famous 
couplet.  Only  when  he  comes  to  the  moderns 
might  Mr.  Lennard  have  cast  his  net  wider. 
Browning,  who  wrote  some  neat  versicles,  is 
unrepresented ;  and  so  is  Mr.  Watson,  who,  in 
his  earlier  days,  wrote  epigrams,  some  of  which, 
if  not  masterpieces,  were  as  good  as  some  of  Mr. 
Lennard's  old  ones.  And  it  would  have  been 
worth  while  to  collect  a  few  of  the  miscellaneous 

3' 


Books  in  General 

modern  ones  that  float  about.  There  are 
Limericks — and  some  Limericks  will  satisfy  the 
narrowest  definition  of  an  epigram — which  would 
be  worth  preserving  ;  and  then  there  are  odd 
fragments  like  the  effort  alleged  to  have  been 
written  on  the  blackboard  by  a  Cheltenham 
schoolgirl : 

Miss  Suss  and  Miss  Eeale 
Cupid's  darts  do  not  fed. 
How  different  from  us 
Miss  Beale  and  Miss  Buss. 

Tolerable  modern  epigrams  are  so  few  that  it 
would  be  worth  while  saving  all  there  are. 
Unfortunately  the  pleasantest  personal  ones  that 
one  hears  privately,  though  they  would  have 
been  printed  in  a  franker  day,  must  mostly  re- 
main unprinted  in  an  age  when  direct  satire  is 
considered  ungentlemanly,  and  the  law  of  libel 

is   so    easily   invoked.     I  remember  Mr.  's 

epigram  on  Lady and  Mr.—   -'s  on  Sir  - 

.     Mr.    Lennard    cannot    be    expected    to 

publish  these. 


32 


An  Eminent  Baconian 


An  Eminent  Baconian 

A  VERY  curious  chapter  in  the  history  of 
the  Bacon-Shakespeare  controversy  closes 
with  the  death  of  Sir  Edwin  Durning- 
Lawrence.     Amid  all  the  strange  multitude  of 
retired  judges,  lawyers,  astrologers,  and  American 
ladies  who  have  championed  the  cause  of  Lord 
Verulam  there  has  been  no  figure  more  singular 
than  that  of  this  affluent  old  ex-M.P.,  who,  after 
a  lifetime  spent  in  business,  platform  speaking, 
and  the  study  of  modern  mechanical  improve- 
ments,   suddenly   plunged   into   the   fight   with 
unprecedented    enthusiasm     and     methods     of 
argument    never    equalled   in    their    singularity. 
Setting  out  with  the  conviction  that  Shakespeare 
could  not  possibly  have  written  the  plays,  and 
that  Bacon  was  the  only  man  who  could  have, 
Sir  Edwin  became  so  obsessed  with  the  subject 
that  he  found  proofs  of  his  contention  everywhere, 
and  gradually  came  to  the  conclusion  that  Bacon 
wrote  almost  all  the  Elizabethan  and  Jacobean 
literature  that  is  worth  reading.     We  have  heard 
of  the  devout  mystic  who  sees  "  every  common 
bush  afire  with  God  "  :    to  Sir  Edwin  Burning- 
Lawrence    every  common    bush  was    afire  with 
Bacon.     His  outlook  being  of  this  character,  it 
is  scarcely  to  be  wondered  at  that  his  methods 
of    reasoning   and   of   research   were  most   sur- 
prising. 

c  33 


Books  in  General 

Most  people  who  read  his  pamphlet,  The 
Shakespeare  Myth,  must  have  been  astounded  by 
the  naivete  of  some  of  the  "  proofs "  there 
contained.  The  fact  that  Bacon  was  called 
Bacon — a  name  so  easily  interchangeable  with 
pig,  hog,  and  rasher — was  a  great  help  ;  for 
where  the  application  of  ciphers  did  not  obtain 
one  word  it  might  obtain  another.  Bacon,  ac- 
cording to  Sir  Edwin,  must  have  been  at  least 
as  preoccupied  with  ensuring  his  identification 
by  posterity  as  with  the  writing  of  good  verse, 
for  he  would  take  great  pains  to  work  in  such  a 
word  as  "  hang-hog,"  or  to  make  three  consecu- 
tive lines  begin  with  words — such  as  Pompey, 
In,  and  Got — out  of  the  initials  of  which  could  be 
constructed  the  appellation  "  pig."  Everything 
was  pork  that  came  to  Sir  Edwin's  net,  and  he 
would  by  tortuous  ratiocination  get  evidence 
from  the  most  seemingly  innocent  contemporary 
English  and  foreign  engravings.  For  there  was 
a  secret  brotherhood  at  work  carrying  on  the 
Baconian  tradition,  and  the  artist  who  gave  the 
portrait  of  Shakespeare  two  left  sleeves  (the 
confirmation  of  this  was,  I  think,  obtained  from 
the  editor  of  the  Tailor  y  Cutter)  had  a  subtle  and 
profound  intention.  Sir  Edwin  collected  a  very 
large  library  in  connexion  with  his  work,  and  the 
study  of  it  was  his  passion ;  but,  save  industry, 
he  had  none  of  the  qualifications  for  his  task. 

I  myself  obtained  in  a  strange  way  an  amusing 
insight  into  his  looseness  of  procedure.  He  had 
34 


An  Eminent  Baconian 

been  writing  letters  maintaining  his  thesis  in  a 
contemporary  weekly.  Wondering  whether  he 
could  be  hoaxed,  I  sent  to  the  paper  a  letter 
over  what  might  have  seemed,  to  a  man  with  any 
real  detective  faculty,  the  suspicious  signature 
"  P.  O.  R.  Ker."  In  this  letter  I  called  Sir 
Edwin's  attention  to  a  quotation  (which  I  had 
myself  invented  and  written  in  Elizabethanese) 
which  I  ascribed  to  one  of  the  best-known 
works  of  Greene.  My  "  quotation  "  (I  forget  its 
wording,  but  it  contained  phrases  about  "  Shake- 
scene  "  and  "  the  semblance  of  a  hogg  ")  made  it 
perfectly  clear  that  Shakespeare  was  merely 
Bacon's  dummy.  Any  man  with  the  slightest 
qualifications  for  his  work  would  have  looked  up 
Greene  for  reference — and  would  not  have  found 
it.  Not  so  Sir  Edwin.  He  wrote  in  at  once 
(the  editor,  in  order  to  spare  his  feelings,  did  not 
print  the  communication)  to  say  that  the  fact 
that  Mr.  Ker's  important  and  convincing  re- 
ference had  been  ignored  by  the  Shakespeareans 
showed  their  utter  incompetence. 

But  the  most  striking  thing  about  him  was  his 
detestation  of  Shakespeare.  There  are  people 
who  hate  Napoleon  ;  there  are  people  who  object 
to  Torquemada  ;  there  are  even  people  who  feel 
a  pronounced  distaste  for  Nero.  But  never  has 
any  one  loathed  and  despised  a  dead  man  as  the 
really  mild  and  amiable  Sir  Edwin  despised  and 
loathed  Shakespeare.  No  epithets  were,  he  felt, 
too  opprobrious  for  this  rascal,  who  for  three 

35 


Books  in  General 

hundred  years  had  cheated  another  man  out  of  his 
due  fame.  He  denied  Shakespeare  any  virtue 
at  all ;  he  pointed  out  that  there  existed  no  proof 
that  Shakespeare  could  even  read ;  and  he 
habitually  referred  to  him  as  the  "  drunken, 
illiterate  clown  of  Stratford,"  "  the  sordid  money- 
lender of  Stratford,"  and  "  the  mean,  drunken, 
ignorant,  and  absolutely  unlettered  rustic  of 
Stratford."  So  strong,  indeed,  were  his  feelings 
that  when  the  Times  says  that  "  One  cannot 
but  feel  that  he  was  happy  in  not  living  to 
see  the  celebrations  which  the  British  Academy 
and  other  friends  of  literature  are  to  hold  in 
1916,  the  third  centenary  of  Shakespeare's — not 
Bacon's — death,"  it  is  not  making  a  weak  and 
untimely  jest,  but  stating  the  sober  truth. 

Who  will  now  take  on  Sir  Edwin's  mantle  as 
the  most  conspicuous  Baconian  ?  Mr.  George 
Greenwood  is  hors  concours  because,  though  an 
anti-Shakespearean,  he  has  doubts  about  Bacon  ; 
and  we  have  heard  nothing  lately  about  that 
romantic  American  doctor  who  a  year  or  two  ago 
began  digging  for  evidence  in  the  bed  of  the 
sylvan  Wye.  That  another  ardent  combatant 
will  soon  appear  is  pretty  certain  ;  in  fact,  there 
will  probably  be  a  continual  succession  of  such 
for  all  time  unless — which  is  unlikely — somebody 
discovers  documentary  proofs  of  Shakespeare's 
authorship  so  irrefutable  that  no  one  could  dream 
of  challenging  them.  For  the  examination  of  a 
mystery — if  you  can  persuade  yourself  that  there 
36 


The  Beauties  of  Badness 

is  a  mystery — is  always  fascinating,  and  the 
search  for  and  application  of  ciphers  and  hidden 
meanings  produces  such  entertaining  results  that  it 
would  be  almost  worth  while  becoming  a  Baconian 
for  the  fun  of  it.  Almost,  but  not  quite. 


The  Beauties  of  Badness 

THE  collector  of  amusingly  bad  poetry  has 
never  had  such  splendid  opportunities 
as  to-day.  The  world  is  all  before  him 
where  to  choose.  Modern  cheap  production  has 
made  it  easy  for  any  one  who  can  raise  £20  to  get 
a  volume  of  poems  printed  ;  and  of  recent  years 
the  field  has  been  greatly  enriched  by  the  growing 
body  of  verse-writers  in  America  and  the  Colonies. 
There  have  always,  of  course,  been  poets  who 
have  given  unintentional  rather  than  intentional 
pleasure.  I  have  before  me  a  volume  published 
(at  Cambridge)  in  1825,  entitled  Original  Poems 
in  the  Moral,  Heroic,  Pathetic  and  other  Styles, 
by  a  Traveller,  which  contains  poems  in  the 
following  style — amongst  others  : 


INGRATITUDE 

My  Muse,  who  oft  recites  on  Love, 

Or  Heavenly  Beatitude, 
Her  strains  more  melancholy  move 

Devoted  to  INGRATITUDE. 

37 


Books  in  General 

With  thee,  Dark  Demon — what  can  charm  ? 

Nor  manners  polished — chaste,  or  rude  ; 
Nor  Friendship's  hand — nor  Safety's  arm 

So  vile  art  thou — INGRATITUDE  ! 

Tho'  dear  a  Female's  face,  or  form  ; 

Tho1  elegant  her  attitude  ; 
We  fly,  as  from  the  winged  storm — 

If  she  pours  forth  INGRATITUDE. 

But  it  is  seldom  that  the  collector  comes  across 
one  of  these  delightful  relics  from  an  older  day. 
The  greater  part  of  any  collection  must  be  formed 
of  books  published  within  the  last  forty  years. 
Our  age  may  be — indeed,  it  is — deficient  in 
some  respects,  but  in  the  production  of  unin- 
tentionally amusing  writers  no  age,  not  even 
the  Renaissance  or  the  great  ages  of  Greece 
and  Rome,  can  vie  with  it. 

It  might  be  possible  for  a  man  with  the 
industry  of  a  Herbert  Spencer  exhaustively  to 
classify  the  writers  of  whom  I  am  speaking,  and 
to  tabulate  the  qualities  which  give  to  their 
works  their  peculiar  virtues — incongruity  of 
image,  unfortunate  use  of  colloquialisms,  hopeless 
slavery  to  the  necessity  of  rhyme,  and  so  on.  I 
am  no  Spencer  ;  indeed,  the  only  things  I  have 
in  common  with  that  philosopher  are  a  taste  for 
billiards  and  the  recollection  of  a  single  visit  to 
the  Derby.  To  me  there  is  a  single  broad 
division  which  connoisseurs  may  find  useful  in 
arranging  their  collections  :  in  one  class  we  may 
38 


The  Beauties  of  Badness 

put  those  poets  who  are  specifically  cranky ; 
in  the  other  those  (some  silly,  some  quite  sensible 
people  apart  from  their  artistic  proclivities)  who 
(Macaulay's  Robert  Montgomery  is  the  type) 
try  to  write  poems  like  other  people's,  but  whose 
total  lack  of  poetic  perception  leads  them  into 
strange  aberrations  of  expression. 

The  first  kind  are  comparatively  rare,  but  there 
are  some  good  examples  still  going  strong.  There 
is,  for  instance,  a  gentleman  (at  one  time  a  distin- 
guished scholar  of  Balliol)  who  describes  himself 
as  "The  Modern  Homer,"  and  has  written  a 
number  of  epics,  including  The  Human  Epic,  The 
Epic  of  London,  The  Epic  of  Charlemagne,  and 
The  Epic  of  God  and  the  Devil.  Preoccupation 
with  his  matter  leads  him  to  such  phrases  as : 

When  Murder  is  on  the  tapis 
Then  the  Devil  is  happy. 

But  he,  perhaps,  is  not  so  interesting  as  Mr. 
William  Nathan  Stedman,  who  used  to  live  in 
London,  and  now,  I  believe,  is  settled  in  Aus- 
tralia. This  gentleman  is  addicted  to  prefaces 
proving  that  Mr.  Gladstone,  "  this  DIRTY  OLD 
DEVIL,"  "  this  sly  old  wizard,  a  protoplasm 
from  the  abyss  of  nowhere,"  was  the  Beast  of  the 
Revelations,  and  he  has  an  aversion  from  Mr. 
R.  J.  Campbell,  whom  he  calls  "  moo-cow,  kid- 
gloved  Campbell."  It  is  well  worthwhile  buying 
his  Sonnets,  Lays  and  Lyrics.  The  poems  them- 
selves are  not  so  amusing,  though  we  sometimes 
came  across  such  ambiguous  phrases  as : 

39 


Books  in  General 

And  when  upon  your  dainty  breast  I  lay 
My  wearied  head — more  soft  than  eiderdown. 

But  the  illustrations — wood-blocks  from  eminent 
artists  like  Albert  Durer  and  Louis  Wain — are 
charmingly  irrelevant,  and  the  prose  passages 
are  unique.  The  poet  refers  to  the  Laureateship 
— "  an  office  I  refused  after  Tennyson's  death, 
though  made  with  the  offer  of  a  premier's 
daughter  and  £30,000 " — and  he  is  violently 
down  on  critics  who  have  failed  to  see  the  merits 
of  a  certain  novelist  whom  he  calls  "  Queen 
Marie,"  "  a  woman  who  did  you  no  wrong,  nor 
envied  ye  your  bones  and  offal,  but  gave 
Most  Interesting  Books  for  your  betterment 
and  education.  Are  ye  not  dirty  dogs  and 
devils  ?  Eh  ?  "  "  Bull-browed  bastards  "  is 
one  of  the  mildest  terms  he  applies  to  the 
critics. 

Difficult  to  place  in  either  class  are  the  poets 
who  have  some  technical  faculty,  who  are  not 
necessarily  cranks,  but  who  endeavour  to  put 
such  extraordinarily  prosy  things  into  verse  that 
the  result  is  as  comic  as  though  they  were.  I 
have,  for  example,  a  book  containing  "  a  lyrical 
romance  in  verse,"  which  tells  a  story,  that 
might  have  gone  quite  well  in  prose,  of  a  man 
who  falls  in  love  with  a  girl  and  has  long  dis- 
cussions with  her  about  politics.  The  author's 
choice  of  a  metrical  form  leads  him  to  pages  and 
pages  of  this  sort  of  thing  : 
40 


The  Beauties  of  Badness 

/  ceased,  and  somewhat  eagerly  she  asked  : 

"  Then  you  would  justify  the  Socialist, 
Or  Anarchist,  the  brute  assassin,  masked 
As  a  reformer,  him  who  has  dismissed 
All  scruples,  and  himself  or  others  tasked 
To  murder  innocence  ?    Can  there  exist 
A  reason  to  excuse  Luccheni's  action, 
Of  life's  great  rights  most  dastardly  in- 
fraction ?  " 

"  Excuse  it,  no/  "  I  said  ;  "  nor  justify  it; 
But  understand  it  yes  ! — I  find,  confusion 
In   both  your   questions ;    and,  your   words 

imply  it, 

They  have  their  base  in  popular  illusion. 
In  Socialism  and  Anarchism,  deny  it 
Who  will,  there's  no  imperative  inclusion 
Of  violence.     Each,  aiming  at  reform, 
Would    lay   life's   ever-raging    life    and 
storm." 

The  growth  of  the  Socialist  and  Suffragist  move- 
ments has  led  to  a  great  increase  in  this  kind  of 
argumentative  verse  ;  but  the  bad  poems  in  the 
Conservative  or  Militarist  interests  are  generally 
very  much  worse,  a  type-specimen  being  this  : 

And  so  with  foes  about  us 

Just  waiting  for  their  chance 
We  must  become  a  nation  armed 

Like  Germany  and  France. 

Another  example  of  Imperialist  verse  is  : 

41 


Books  in  General 

Pm  old  John  Bull  of  England, 

My  triumphs  are  in  song. 
I've  fought  and  won  great  victories 

Which  did  not  take  me  long. 

Pve  fought  in  many  a  battle 

By  sea  as  well  as  land. 
Pve  fought  in  Russia,  Belgium, 

Africa  and  India's  golden  strand, 

which   occurs   in   a   work   appealing   for   better 
treatment  for  British  Honduras. 

But  most  of  the  best  bad  verse  is  not  propa- 
gandist. Amongst  the  classics  of  the  kind  the 
Works  of  Johnston-Smith  rank  high.  These 
have  been  published  complete  in  one  volume, 
but  the  best  of  them  are  to  be  found  in  a  smaller 
book  entitled  'The  Captain  of  the  Dolphin.  Mr. 
Johnston-Smith  had  a  great  vocabulary  and 
peculiar  gifts  of  metaphor  and  of  abrupt  con- 
clusion. Here  are  some  typical  passages  : 

A  balminess  the  darkened  hours  had  brought  from 

out  the  South, 
Each  breaker  doffed  its  cap  of  white  and  shut  its 

blatant  mouth. 

Strike,  strike  your  flag,  Sidonia, 

And  lessen  death  and  pain  ; 
"  Strike,"  "  Fight "  are  but  synonyma 

For  misery  to  Spain. 

On  speedy  wing  the  graceful  sea-fowl  follow  fast — 

They  seem  to  me  the  souls  of  seamen  drowned, 
42 


The  Beauties  of  Badness 

Who  have  for  sailors,  ships  and  ocean' 's  briny  blast 
Dumb  love  which  they  are  yearning  to  •propound. 

O'er  the  sea's  edge  the  sun,  a  dazzling  disc, 

In  splendour  hangs,  preparing  for  his  plunge  ; 

Upon  the  heaven's  bright  page  he  stamps  an  asterisk 
Of  yellow  beams  which  Western  things  expunge. 

Reluctant  I  leave,  like  a  lover  who  goes 
From  the  side  of  the  maid  of  his  choice, 

By  whom  he  is  held  with  a  cord  actuose 
Spun  out  of  her  beauty  and  voice. 

"  Actuose  "  is  very  characteristic  of  this  poet, 
who  uses  enormous  numbers  of  astonishing 
words  of  which  he  does  not  tell  us  the  meaning, 
although  he  gives  us  a  glossary  containing  such 
definitions  as : 

Derelict.     An  abandoned  ship. 
Outward-bound.     Sailing  from  home. 
To-heave-ho  !    A  phrase  used  by  sailors  when  two 
or  more  pull  in  concert  at  the  same  rope. 

One  of  his  nicest  surprises  is  the  ending  of  : 

Where  the  sun  circles  round  for  the  half  of  the  year 
And  is  cold — like  a  yellow  balloon. 

The  kind  of  thrill  produced  by  this  unexpected 
ending  is,  of  course,  common  in  verse.  Some 
readers  will  be  acquainted  with  the  epitaph  : 

Here  beneath  this  stone  at  rest 
Lies  the  dear  dog  who  loved  us  best. 

43 


Books  in  General 

Within  his  heart  was  nothing  mean, 
He  seemed-  just  like  a  human  being. 

But  a  University  poet's  anticlimax  on  Actaeon 
may  not  be  so  generally  known  : 

His  hands  were  changed,  to  feet,  and  he  in  short 
Became  a  stag.  .  .  . 

Nor  this  affecting  stanza  from  a  woman's  book 
recently  published  : 

What  0'  the  wind  ? 
It  hisses  through  a  vessel's  spars. 

What  0'  the  wind  ? 
It  is  in  truth  to  mercy  blind, 
It  surely  from  all  rest  debars. 
And  even  frights  the  sturdy  "  tars." 

What  0'  the  wind  ? 

An  equal  bathos  is  sometimes  produced  by 
inappropriate  metaphor.  The  worst  instance  I 
know  is  found  in  the  poems  of  quite  a  well-known 
writer  who  describes  roses  : 

Aft  before  and  fore  behind 
Swung  upon  the  summer  wind. 

But  the  author  of  a  recent  drama  of  the  Near 
East  came  pretty  near  it  with 

.  .  .  the  diamond  shaft  of  the  Jierce  searchlight 
From  the  lens  of  the  crystal  moon. 

44 


The  Beauties  of  Badness 

The  chase  after  the  unusual  almost  always  means 
disaster.     This  is  another  recent  example  : 

I  have  found  ihee,  clear  !  on  the  edge  of  time, 
Just  over  the  brink  of  the  world  of  sense  ; 
In  dream-life  that's  ours,  when  with  love  intense 
We  function  above,  in  a  fairer  dime. 

I  have  found  ihee  there,  in  a  world  of  rest, 
In  the  fair  sweet  gardens  of  sunlit  bliss, 
Where  the  sibilant  sound  of  an  Angel's  kiss 
Is  the  sanctioned  seal  of  a  Holy  quest. 

But  nothing  produced  in  this  manner  is  so  attrac- 
tive as  the  merely  commonplace  can  be  when 
carried  to  its  farthest  pitch.  A  year  or  two  ago 
a  young  American  published  a  volume  with  a 
preface  ending :  "  He  was  apprised  of  the  death 
of  his  invalid  brother,  whose  remaining  portion 
of  his  grandfather's  legacy  accruing  to  him 
facilitated  the  publication  of  this  book."  The 
epilogue  ran  as  follows  : 

Oh,  the  rain,  rain,  rain  ! 
All  the  day  it  doth  complain. 
On  the  window-pane,  just  near  me, 
How  it  sputters,  oh,  how  dreary  ! 
One  becomes  so  awful  weary 
With  the  rain,  rain,  rain. 

The  difference  between  this  and  Verlaine's  // 
pleut  sur  la  ville  would  be  hard  to  define,  but 
there  certainly  is  a  marked  difference. 

45 


Books  in  General 

Most  of  the  poets  quoted  above  have,  at  any 
rate,  the  gift  of  moving  with  some  freedom 
within  their  metres.  But  some  people  who  pub- 
lish verse  cannot  even  do  that,  however  simple 
the  forms  they  choose.  They  struggle  through 
their  poems  like  flies  in  treacle.  A  good  example 
may  be  taken  from  a  book  (excellently  produced) 
issued  only  a  year  ago  by  one  of  the  foremost 
publishers.  Apart  from  its  other  qualities,  it 
shows  a  most  extraordinarily  revolutionary  con- 
ception of  the  way  in  which  lines  may  be  ended  : 

A  man's  home  is  a  woman's  breast.     There  see 
Him  in  infancy,  and  later,  seeks  he 
Inspiration  from  the  self-same  source.     'Tis 
His  home,  t*  wards  which,  from  cradle  to  the  grave, 
He  doth  gravitate,  accomplishing  his 
Greatest  work  by  aid  of  it.     Man  on  the 
Woman's  aid  depends.     Oft  unconsciously 
""Tis  given,  oft  loyally  the  truth' *s  in 
Loving  breast  safeguarded — less  often  'tis 
In  cruelty  withheld. 

This  supplies  the  only  case  I  know  of  in  which  the 
article  "  the  "  has  been  used  as  a  rhyme.  But 
for  sheer  struggle  the  poem  does  not  excel  parts 
of  this  other  one,  which  was  published  in  a  recent 
anthology : 

Along  a  marsh  a  hungry  crane 

With  patient  steps,  his  way  did  take 

Each  cranny  of  the  rivage  fain 
To  ransack  with  his  slender  beak, 


The  Beauties  of  Badness 

When,  suddenly,  his  watchful  eye, 
At  but  four  paces  distance,  saw 

A  worm,  that  back,  as  suddenly, 
To  bis  subterranean  hole  did  draw. 

Nathless  the  crane  did,  straight,  begin 
His  beak,  and  claw,  alike,  to  ply 

And  hoping  the  retreat  he,  in 

The  end,  of  the  insect  might  destroy, 

The  turf  did  tear  up,  and  dispel 

The  clods,  and  with  such  vigour  strive 

That  he,  at  last,  perceives  his  bill 
At  of  the  cave  the  depth  arrive  ; 

But  lo  !  just  when  of  all  his  toil, 
The  object  he  was  nigh  to  get, 

Beneath  his  very  nib,  a  mole, 
Without  ado,  devoured  it ! 

Thus  often,  lurchers,  onward  who 
Are  prone  by  shady  ways  to  creep 

May  the  reward  to  those  that's  due 
Who,  openly,  have  acted,  reap. 

This  fable  is  called  by  the  author  A  Surrep- 
titious Catch  ;  but  it  might  equally  fitly  have 
been  entitled  The  Apotheosis  of  the  Comma. 

I  have,  as  I  say,  insufficient  scientific  talent  to 
enter  upon  an  analytic  criticism  of  this  kind  of 
poetry ;  and  in  this  brief  discourse  I  have  done 

47 


Books  in  General 

little  more  than  string  quotations  together.  But 
that  operation  is  all  that  is  needed  to  serve 
my  present  object — viz.  the  propagation  of  the 
cult.  Any  one  who  has  ever  read  the  novels  of 
Mrs.  Amanda  M'Kittrick  Ros  knows  how  much 
sustenance  the  human  spirit  may  derive  from  the 
byways  of  literature ;  but  it  is  very  rarely  that 
one  meets,  even  amongst  the  best-read  of  men, 
one  who  is  conscious  of  the  peculiar  poetic 
treasures  that  lie  about  in  the  publishers'  offices 
and  on  the  second-hand  bookstalls  simply  im- 
ploring to  be  collected. 


More  Badness 

MY  appeal  for  interesting  specimens  of 
bad   verse    has    brought    me    a   large 
mass   of  material ;    but   most  of   my 
correspondents  seem  not  to  realize  that  merely 
feeble  and  meaningless  verse  is  so  common  as 
not  to  be  worth  preserving.      The   best   single 
line   I  have  received — sent  me  by  a  notorious 
dramatist  who  has  forgotten  its  place  of  origin 
— is  : 

The  beetle  booms  adown  the  glooms  and  bumps 
among  the  clumps  ; 

and  what  promised  to  be  the  best  whole  poem 
is  one  that  begins  by  rhyming  "  Atlantic  "  to 


More  Badness 

"  blanket."  But  when  I  had  got  through  it  I 
found  that  my  correspondent  had  got  it  out  of  a 
visitors'  book  in  an  hotel.  I  really  cannot  count 
anything  that  has  not  been  properly  published  ; 
although  I  confess  to  being  tempted  by  such 
lines  as  : 

Farewell,  farewell,  bonny  St.  Ives, 

May  I  live  to  see  you  again, 
Tour  air  preserves  people's  lives 

And  you  have  so  little  rain. 

So  really  the  best  acquisition  I  have  made  is 
the  following,  the  author  of  which  I  should  like 
to  discover  : 

In  this  imperfect,  gloomy  scene 

Of  complicated  ill, 
How  rarely  is  a  day  serene, 

The  throbbing  bosom  still ! 
Will  not  a  beauteous  landscape  bright 

Or  music's  soothing  sound, 
Console  the  heart,  afford  delight, 

And  throw  sweet  peace  around  ? 
They  may  ;  but  never  comfort  lend 
Like  an  accomplished  female  friend  ! 

With  such  a  friend  the  social  hour 

In  sweetest  pleasure  glides  ; 
There  is,  in  female  charms  a  power 

Which  lastingly  abides  ; 

D  49 


Books  in  General 

The  fragrance  of  the  blushing  rose, 

Its  tints  and  splendid  hue, 
Will,  with  the  seasons,  decompose, 

And  pass  asjlitting  dew  ; 
On  firmer  ties  his  joys  depend 
Who  has  a  faithful  female  friend! 

As  orbs  revolve,  and  years  recede 

And  seasons  onward  roll, 
The  fancy  may  on  beauties  feed 

With  discontented  soul ; 
A  thousand  objects  bright  and  fair 

May  for  a  moment  shine, 
Tet  many  a  sigh  and  many  a  tear 

But  mark  their  swift  decline  ; 
While  lasting  joys  the  man  attend 
Who  has  a  polished  female  friend  ! 

My  correspondent  says  that  he  received  this 
from  a  friend  (perhaps  a  polished  female  friend), 
who  did  not  tell  him  whence  it  was  extracted.  I 
myself  have  seen  two  lines  of  it  before — the  last 
two  of  the  second  stanza.  They  occurred  in  a 
letter  I  received  some  time  ago  from  a  cleiical 
acquaintance  who  was  apologizing  for  having  got 
engaged.  He,  on  inquiry,  pretended  (with  a 
mendacity  very  rare  amongst  clergymen)  that 
he  had  written  the  lines  himself  ;  but  I  did  not 
believe  him.  The  poem  bears  the  marks  of  the 
earlier  decades  of  the  nineteenth  century.  Can 
it  be  by  Thomas  Haynes  Bayly  ? 

One  interesting  thing  I  should  like  to  trace  is  a 
5° 


More  Badness 

metrical  version  of  Holy  Writ  containing  such 
lines  as  these  on  Jonah  : 

Three  dreadful  days  beneath  the  deep, 
In  fish's  belly  dark  lay  he. 
How  terrible  methinks  his  fate. 
May  no  such  torment  fall  on  me. 

The  most  ingenious  writer  who  contributes  the 
"  Observator  "  column  to  the  Observer  offers  me 
a  couple  of  specimens,  one  of  which  is  new  to  me. 
The  old  one  is  the  late  Mr.  Alfred  Austin's  remark 
about  Nature  : 

She  sins  upon  a  larger  scale 
Because  she  is  herself  more  large. 

And  the  other,  a  touching  narrative  of  a  gipsy 
woman  who  fell  ill,  was  a  discovery  of  Andrew 
Lang's  : 

There  we  leave  her, 
There  we  leave  her, 

Far  from  where  her  swarthy  kindred  roam, 
In  the  Scarlet  Fever, 
Scarlet  Fever, 
Scarlet  Fever  Convalescent  Home. 


Books  in  General 


A  Mystery  Solved 

APARENTLY  the  poem  about  "  a  polished 
female  friend  "  is  to  be  found  in  one  of 
Mr.  E.  V.  Lucas's  books.  It  was  written, 
it  seems,  by  a  parson  named  Whur  or  Whurr, 
who  flourished  in  Norfolk  about  a  century  ago. 
Whur  delighted  in  all  calamities,  and  described 
a  father,  on  the  birth  of  a  child  with  no  arms, 
exclaiming :  "  This  armless  child  will  ruin  me." 
No  one  has  yet  brought  to  my  notice  any  whole 
volumes  of  bad  verse  worth  acquiring,  though 
various  choice  fragments  have  reached  me.  There 
is  an  epithalamium  ending  : 

And  never,  never  she'll  forget 

The  happy,  happy  day, 

When  in  the  church,  before  God's  priest, 

She  gave  herself  away. 

There  is  an  in  memoriam  poem  beginning : 

Dear  Friends,  we  had  a  sudden  Blast 
Which  came  to  us  unexpected. 

And  there  is  a  loyal  song  to  their  present  Majesties 
in  which  occur  the  lines  : 

Our  King  and  Queen  are  never  proud 
They  mingle  with  the  densest  crowd. 
52 


A  Mystery  Solved 

But  the  most  attractive  new  specimen  is  a  poem 
on  the  late  monarch's  death.  It  was  printed  and 
sold  as  a  broadsheet  in  London,  and  runs  : 

The  will  of  God  we  must  obey. 
Dreadful — our  King  taken  away  I 
The  greatest  friend  of  the  nation, 
Mighty  monarch  and  protection  ! 

Heavenly  Father,  help  in  sorrow 
Queen  Mother,  and  them  to  follow, 
What  to  do  without  him  who  has  gone  ! 
Pray  help  !  help  I  and  do  lead  us  on. 

Greatest  sorrow  England  ever  had, 
When  death  took  away  our  Dear  Dad  ; 
A  king  was  he  from  head  to  sole, 
Loved  by  his  people  one  and  all. 

His  mighty  work  for  the  Nation, 
Making  peace  and  strengthening  union — 
Always  at  it  since  on  the  throne  : 
Saved  the  country  more  than  billion. 

There  are  two  more  verses.  Personally,  I  find 
this  considerably  more  interesting  than  any  of 
Mr.  Alfred  Noyes's  various  Coronation  Odes. 


53 


Books  in  General 


Carrying  the  Alliance  too  far 

WHY  is  it  that  Japanese  authors  are 
allowed  to  write  in  English  news- 
papers any  sort  of  barbarous  jargon 
they  like  ?  Mr.  Yoshio  Markino  was  the  first  to 
be  licensed.  To  start  with,  one  found  his 
"  delightfully  quaint "  English  amusing  in  a 
mild  way,  but  with  repetition  his  sedulously 
cherished  howlers  became  irritating.  Still,  he 
was  only  one  ;  and  primarily  a  painter  at  that. 
But  now  Mr.  Yone  Noguchi  has  turned  up,  and  he 
is  doing  the  same  thing.  Mr.  Noguchi  is  con- 
sidered in  Japan — at  least  so  his  friends  tell  us — 
the  first  poet  of  the  day.  Those  who  remembered 
his  last  residence  here  assured  us  that  on  his 
return  he  would  compel  all  men — like  Helen  of 
Troy  or  Mr.  Tagore.  He  comes.  One  is  pre- 
pared to  be  conquered.  One  turns  to  one's 
Westminster  Gazette  to  read  his  works  ;  and  one 
finds  there  columns  of  stuff,  possibly  inspired,  but 
certainly  written  in  such  pidgin-English  that  one 
cannot  bother  to  read  it. 

Mr.  Noguchi's  pidgin-English  is  not  of  quite  so 
curious  a  breed  as  Mr.  Markino's,  but  it  is  suffi- 
ciently bad.  One  does  not  blame  him  for  that. 
He  writes  English  a  great  deal  better  than  I  do 
Japanese.  But  why  on  earth  cannot  the  news- 
papers who  print  his  works  translate  them  into 

54 


Carrying  the  Alliance  too  far 

normal  English  ?  Is  it  that  their  sub-editors 
shrink  from  the  task  ?  Is  it  that  they  fondly 
believe  that  we  are  all  so  fascinated  by  English 
of  the  Noguchi-Markinesque  brand  that  we  had 
much  rather  have  it  than  any  other  sort ;  or  is  it 
that  a  tradition  has  been  established  that  Anglo- 
Japanese  articles  are  not  to  be  altered  ?  If  this 
is  true,  it  is  a  thousand  pities  that,  for  all  their 
charm,  Mr.  Markino's  early  productions  were  not 
unmercifully  damned.  What  should  we  say  if 
newspapers  began  printing  in  all  their  native 
crudity  articles  by  Frenchmen  and  Germans 
imperfectly  acquainted  with  the  tongue  of  this 
country  ?  Suppose  some  journal  came  out  next 
week  with  an  essay  beginning  : 

"  What  sadly  fall  the  leaves  of  automne  ! 
What  of  sadness  tumble  on  the  heart  because 
that  the  winter  put  his  snows  on  all  the  country. 
And  sad  also  the  spring,  the  spring  who  arouse 
the  love  in  the  soul,  and  who  make  to  think  to 
all  the  springs  of  the  time  past.  My  heart  weep 
like  a  bird  who  have  lose  her  companion." 

Or  suppose  a  German  were  allowed  by  the 
Westminster  to  present  its  readers  with  a  political 
article  opening  : 

"  No  Dutcher  has  the  by  Mr.  Gamaliel  Zoop, 
Amerikansh  postaltelegrafkommunikationdepart- 
ment  minister  on  politishekonomy  famose  lecture 
to  a  at  Manchester  people  -  coming  -  together 

55 


Books  in  General 

delivered  recently  without  outerorderly  pleasure 
read." 

Obviously  we  should  not  tolerate  it.  Can  it  be 
that,  even  after  the  war  with  Russia,  even  after 
Japanese  professors  have  written  works  on 
sociology,  the  superstition  lingers  here  that  a 
thing  cannot  possibly  be  truly  Japanese  unless  it 
has  the  odour  of  an  old  curiosity  shop  ? 

None  of  this,  I  may  say,  is  meant  to  be  dis- 
courteous to  Mr.  Noguchi.  I  merely  suggest  that 
it  would  be  better  for  him  if  he  vetoed  every 
endeavour  to  print  his  English  articles  as  he 
writes  them.  If  he  were  the  Japanese  Homer — 
indeed,  he  may  be  that  for  all  I  know — I  should 
say  precisely  the  same  thing.  Can  he  be  aware 
that  even  his  faulty  spelling  goes  uncorrected  ? 


May  1914 

I  WRITE  "  these  lines  "  just  after  arriving 
in  Berlin.     Not  that  I   have  anything  to 
say  about  that.      I    merely  mention   the 
fact.      It   may   explain     my    difficulties.      The 
journey  is  really  very  dull.     All  those  hundreds 
of  miles  over  the  Great  Plain  of  Europe  with 
never  a  hill  except  the  ridge  of  Minden,  very  little 
water,  nothing  but  endless  flat  fields  sprinkled 
with  trees,  church  spires,  and  red  farm-houses. 

56 


May  1914 

There  is  simply  nothing  to  look  at.  If  you  put 
your  head  out  of  the  window  at  Osnabriick,  you 
may  see  some  coal ;  and  at  Miinster  you  may,  if 
you  choose,  speculate  as  to  which  of  the  people 
on  the  platform  are  Anabaptists.  That  is  not 
much  during  a  twelve-hour  run  from  Flushing. 

A  pleasant  travelling  companion  is  an  allevia- 
tion on  such  occasions.  The  other  occupant  of 
my  carriage  had  points  about  her.  She  was  a 
young,  cheerful,  and  rather  obese  Jewess  going 
home  with  a  plethora  of  scarves  and  wraps, 
several  boxes,  two  lobsters  (for  her  father), 
and  a  canary.  At  Goch  she  was  incensed  to  find 
that  she  had  to  pay  a  heavy  duty  on  the  lobsters, 
so  heavy  that  it  would  have  paid  her  better  to 
get  the  creatures  in  Berlin  and  have  a  drink  on  the 
balance.  This  story  might  make  an  illustration 
for  one  of  Mr.  Lloyd  George's  homely  speeches  on 
Free  Trade.  But  there  was  no  duty  on  the 
canary.  In  his  little  cage,  covered  with  a  green 
curtain,  the  canary  sat,  non-dutiable  but  very 
phlegmatic.  At  frequent  intervals  his  mistress 
lifted  the  green  curtain,  looked  him  in  the  eyes 
with  a  bewitching  smile,  and  piped  "  Peep, 
Peep."  The  bird  never  replied,  though  perhaps 
he  looked  his  response.  The  lady  then  turned 
to  me  and  said,  "  Is  'e  not  a  nice  bird  ?  Is  'e 
not  goot  ?  "  and  common  politeness — leaving 
gallantry  out  of  the  question — compelled  me  to 
reply  always,  "  Yes,  a  beautiful  little  bird." 
About  twice  an  hour  she  retired  to  the  dining- 

57 


Books  in  General 

car  and  came  back  exuding  smiles  and  sighs. 
"  I  haf  joost  'ad  a  bifsteck.  I  dawn't  like  steck." 
How  true  it  is  that  in  life  we  have  to  be  content 
with  second-bests  !  But  I  did  not  discuss  the 
matter. 

In  intervals  of  silence  I  finished  Mrs.  Russell 
Barrington's  Life  of  Walter  Bagehot  (Longmans, 
I2s.  6d.  net).  It  is  a  strange  thing — and  un- 
fortunate, since  so  much  material  has  disappeared 
with  the  passage  of  time — that  Bagehot  should 
have  had  to  wait  nearly  forty  years  for  a  biog- 
raphy. But  now  it  has  come  it  is  an  interesting 
one.  The  author  being  Bagehot's  sister-in-law 
(daughter  of  James  Wilson,  who  founded  the 
Economist),  the  work  has  rather  a  family  air. 
Bagehot's  more  obvious  virtues  are  a  little  too 
much  insisted  upon,  and  excessive  importance  is 
attributed  to  irrelevant  details.  The  long  de- 
scription of  his  ancestry  and  birthplace,  for 
instance,  might  have  been  curtailed.  But  the 
Life  is  well  written ;  it  contains  a  great  many 
interesting  letters,  and  it  gives  a  really  living 
picture  of  one  whom  Lord  Bryce  has  called  "  the 
most  original  mind  of  his  generation." 

One  would  wish,  however,  for  a  supplement 
giving  a  fuller  analysis  of  Bagehot's  literary 
work.  Mrs.  Barrington  gives  little  more  than  a 
list  of  the  titles  of  his  essays.  It  is  true  that  to 
most  people  Bagehot  is  still  primarily  the  political 
and  economic  writer.  There  are  few  intelligent 
58 


May  1914 

Englishmen  to-day  who  have  not  been  influenced 
by  The  English  Constitution  and,  in  a  lesser 
degree,  by  Physics  and  Politics.  His  Economic 
Studies  make  the  rudiments  of  political  economy 
as  simple  and  even  as  entertaining  as  a  good 
fairy-tale,  and  those  who  have  read  Lombard 
Street  speak  of  it  as  a  masterpiece.  But  the  most 
extraordinary  thing  about  it  is  that  this  man, 
who  knew  all  about  currency,  who  was  in  the 
confidence  of  Chancellors  of  the  Exchequer,  and 
who  invented  Treasury  Bills,  was  also  one  of 
the  most  illuminating  and  sympathetic  literary 
critics  that  England  has  ever  produced.  Per- 
sonally I  find  his  literary  essays  inferior  to 
those  of  no  other  English  critic  who  was  not 
himself  a  poet,  and  I  think  that  in  some 
respects,  though  not  in  all,  they  are  better  than 
Arnold's. 

Probably  Bagehot's  celebrity  as  an  economist 
militated  for  some  years  after  his  death  against 
the  popularity  of  his  literary  work.  Many 
literary  people,  looking  through  the  complete 
list  of  his  works,  and  seeing  Literary  and  Bio- 
graphical Studies  jostling  shoulders  with  works 
on  money,  may  very  pardonably  have  assumed 
that  these  Studies,  however  able,  must  have 
been  of  a  dry,  hard  character.  They  are  very  far 
from  that ;  no  English  criticism  is  more  human 
than  his,  less  coldly  intellectual ;  his  tempera- 
ment, naturally  emotional  and  mystical,  was 
most  valuably  reinforced  by  the  balance,  the 

59 


Books  in  General 

tolerance,  the  sanity  that  were  developed  by  his 
more  mundane  activities,  but  the  temporal  man 
in  him  never  overcame  the  eternal.  Such  essays 
as  those  on  Hartley  Coleridge,  on  Shelley,  on 
Dickens,  on  Cowper,  on  the  Edinburgh  Re- 
viewers, are  bound  before  long  to  be  recog- 
nized as  among  the  great  classics  of  English 
criticism.  Naturally  he  was  not  impeccable ; 
posterity  may  think,  for  example,  that  he 
attached  too  much  importance  to  his  friend 
Clough.  But  he  is  usually  completely  convincing. 
Take  the  following  passage  from  the  comparison 
of  Wordsworth  and  Jeffrey  : 

"  A  clear,  precise,  discriminating  intellect 
shrinks  at  once  from  the  symbolic,  the  unfounded, 
the  indefinite.  The  misfortune  is  that  mysticism 
is  true.  There  certainly  are  kinds  of  truths, 
borne  in  as  it  were  instinctively  on  the  human 
intellect,  most  influential  on  the  character  and 
the  heart,  yet  hardly  capable  of  stringent  state- 
ment, difficult  to  limit  by  an  elaborate  definition. 
Their  course  is  shadowy  ;  the  mind  seems  rather 
to  have  seen  than  to  see  them,  more  to  feel  after 
than  definitely  apprehend  them.  They  com- 
monly involve  an  infinite  element  which,  of 
course,  cannot  be  stated  precisely,  or  else  a  first 
principle — an  original  tendency  of  our  intellectual 
constitution,  which  it  is  impossible  not  to  feel, 
and  yet  which  it  is  hard  to  extricate  in  terms 
and  words.  Of  this  latter  kind  is  what  has  been 
called  the  religion  of  Nature,  or  more  exactly, 
60 


May  1914 

perhaps,  the  religion  of  the  imagination.  This 
is  an  interpretation  of  the  world.  Accordingly, 
to  it  the  beauty  of  the  universe  has  a  meaning, 
its  grandeur  a  soul,  and  its  sublimity  an  ex- 
pression. As  we  gaze  on  the  faces  of  those  whom 
we  love  ;  as  we  watch  the  light  of  life  in  the 
dawning  of  their  eyes,  and  the  play  of  their 
features,  and  the  wildness  of  their  animation  ; 
as  we  trace  in  changing  lineaments  a  varying 
sign  ;  as  a  charm  and  a  thrill  seem  to  run  along 
the  tone  of  a  voice,  to  haunt  the  mind  with  a 
mere  word  ;  as  a  tone  seems  to  roar  in  the  ear  ; 
as  a  trembling  fancy  hears  words  that  are  un- 
spoken ;  so  in  Nature  the  mystical  sense  finds  a 
motion  in  the  mountain,  and  a  power  in  the 
waves,  and  a  meaning  in  the  long  white  line  of  the 
shore,  and  a  thought  in  the  blue  of  heaven,  and  a 
gushing  soul  in  the  buoyant  light,  an  unbounded 
being  in  the  vast  void  of  air,  and 

Wakeful  watching  in  the  pointed  stars. 

"  There  is  a  philosophy  in  this  which  might  be 
explained,  if  explaining  were  to  our  purpose. 
It  might  be  advanced  that  there  are  original 
sources  of  expression  in  the  essential  grandeur 
and  sublimity  of  Nature,  of  an  analogous  though 
fainter  kind  to  those  familiar,  inexplicable  signs 
by  which  we  trace  in  the  very  face  and  outward 
lineaments  of  man  the  existence  and  working  of 
the  mind  within.  But  be  this  as  it  may,  it  is 
certain  that  Mr.  Wordsworth  preached  this  kind 

61 


Books  in  General 

of  religion  and  that  Lord  Jeffrey  did  not  believe 
a  word  of  it." 

The  visionary  and  the  epigrammatist  are  near 
allied,  and  both  the  practical  and  the  ideal  in 
Bagehot  are  illustrated  in  his  own  phrase : 
"  If  you  would  vanquish  Earth,  you  must 
invent  Heaven."  Bagehot,  as  he  appeared  to 
ordinary  people  every  day,  is  portrayed  in  another 
sentence.  "  He  left  many,"  it  is  said,  "  with  the 
idea  that  he  was  a  good  fellow,  yet  with  no  idea 
that  he  was  a  great  man."  A  great  man  can 
have  no  better  epitaph. 


May  1914  :    The  Leipzig 
Exhibition 

AY  one  who  imagines  that  the  English 
can,  or  at  all  events  do,  compete  with 
the  Germans  in  beauty  of  book-pro- 
duction had  better  go  to  Leipzig  this  summer  and 
visit  the  Buchgewerbe  und  Graphik  Exhibition 
— or  "  Bugra,"  as  it  is  universally  called  in 
Germany.  The  new  railway  station — the  finest 
in  the  world — is  also  worth  going  to  see  ;  but 
that,  presumably,  will  last  after  this  year.  In 
many  respects  the  exhibition  is  like  all  other  big 
exhibitions.  It  is  much  too  enormous  to  be 
capable  of  thorough  inspection.  Leaving  out  of 
account  the  huge  buildings  devoted  to  the 
62 


May  1914 :   The  Leipzig  Exhibition 

mechanics  of  printing  and  so  on,  there  are  a 
palace  ("  The  Hall  of  Kultur,"  of  course),  filled 
with  engravings  and  photographs  ;  a  colossal 
structure  containing  the  exhibits  of  German 
publishers  of  books  and  music  ;  and  pavilions 
for  most  of  the  other  nations  of  the  earth.  Even 
Corea  has  a  building — though  I  did  not  see  it 
— and  Siam  is  well  to  the  fore.  The  exhibition 
grounds  are  very  extensive  ;  they  contain  (need 
I  say  ?)  a  "  Street  of  Nations,"  many  fountains, 
and  countless  cafes.  There  is  a  reproduction  of 
Heidelberg  Castle,  full  of  drinking-cups  and  the 
weapons  with  which  German  students  put  a 
little  interest  into  each  other's  faces.  There  is  a 
Bavarian  Hall,  where  real  peasant  maidens 
bring  your  beer  and  the  latest  and  cheapest 
musical-comedy  tunes  are  played  by  real  peasant 
musicians,  with  feathered  hats  and  costume 
complete  down  to  the  bare  knees  that  they  insist 
on  retaining  in  the  face  of  a  proclamation  by  the 
local  Catholic  hierarchs  to  the  effect  that  such  a 
display  of  naked  charms  is  grossly  indecent. 
There  is  no  wiggle-woggle,  but  there  is  a  water- 
chute  and  a  shooting-gallery  whose  proprietors 
invite  you  to  come  in  and  try  your  skill  at  "  live 
objects."  The  man  who  was  with  me — he  is  a 
person  who,  like  Mr.  Galsworthy,  would  not  touch 
a  fly  "  save  "  (as  the  old  verse  has  it)  "  in  the 
way  of  kindness,"— refused  to  come  in.  Naively 
distrustful  of  aliens  he  was  afraid,  he  said,  that 
the  targets  might  be  dogs.  But  he  need  not 
have  been  alarmed,  for  we  were  afterwards  in- 

.63 


Books  in  General 

formed  that  they  were  merely  big  game  thrown 
on  a  screen  by  a  cinematograph.  When  you  hit 
an  animal  it  did  not  drop,  but  a  red  light  showed. 

Naturally  comparisons  between  the  exhibits 
should  be  made  very  cautiously ;  the  exhibition 
is  being  held  on  German  soil  and  the  German 
display  is  much  larger  than  any  other.  In  many 
respects  England  shows  up  very  well.  The  Eng- 
lish section  in  the  Halle  der  Kultur  is  certainly  as 
good  as  any,  and  the  etchings  shown  by  Mr. 
Muirhead  Bone,  Mr.  Charles  Shannon,  Sir  Charles 
Holroyd,  and  other  British  artists  are  possibly 
the  very  best  things  in  the  place.  The  main 
English  exhibit  is  housed  in  a  pleasant  Tudor 
building  with  some  beautiful  rooms.  The  Shake- 
speare exhibit  of  editions  and  portraits  is  most 
interesting  for  those  who  like  that  sort  of  thing  ; 
a  fine  collection  of  original  Beardsley  drawings 
has  been  lent  by  Mr.  Lane  ;  the  Caxtons  are 
coming  ;  there  are  admirable  specimens  of  the 
works  of  the  Kelmscott,  Riccardi,  Florence,  and 
other  presses  ;  there  is  a  gallery  of  Medici  prints 
unsurpassed  by  any  colour-reproductions  in  the 
exhibition  (the  print  of  the  Dresden  Van  Eyck 
triptych  is  the  most  completely  satisfying  colour- 
print  I  have  ever  seen)  ;  and  the  elaborate 
bindings  by  Riviere's,  the  Oxford  Press,  and  other 
establishments  are  not  inferior  even  to  the 
exquisite  leather  bindings  by  Noulhac  and  R. 
Kieffer  shown  in  the  French  building.  Every- 
thing our  officials  could  have  done  has  been  done 
64 


May  1914 :  The  Leipzig  Exhibition 

to  perfection  ;  and  the  special  exhibits  have  been 
very  well  chosen.  Where  we  fall  sadly  short  is  in 
the  ordinary  book  of  commerce. 

I  cannot  but  think  that  the  English  publishers 
who  have  taken  stalls — and,  of  course,  the 
selection  of  exhibits  here  had  to  be  left  to  the 
publishers  themselves — could  have  brought  to- 
gether a  more  attractive -looking  lot  of  books 
than  they  have  done.  Most  of  them — I  mention 
no  names — seem  to  have  bundled  together  their 
books  without  any  consideration  either  of  the 
contents  or  of  the  appearance  of  the  volumes. 
Of  course  there  are  English  publishers  who 
have  no  fine  books  and  few  decent-looking 
books  on  their  lists  ;  but  some  of  the  specimens 
at  Leipzig  look  almost  like  remnants  which  it 
is  hoped  to  sell  off  to  visitors.  But  even  if  all 
the  English  publishers  had  shown  all  their  best 
books,  and  none  of  their  worst,  they  would  still 
have  been  put  in  the  shade  by  the  Germans. 
Even  the  French  publishers — whose  achievements 
in  typography  and  in  illustration  have  been 
great — are  not  now  fit  to  be  mentioned  in  the 
same  breath  as  the  Germans. 

The  German  exhibits  are  a  revelation.  The 
mid-Victorian  tradition  in  print  and  design — 
which  was  so  tenacious  in  Germany — has  now 
been  almost  completely  abandoned.  I  don't 
suggest  that  all  German  books  are  more  pre- 
sentable than  English  ones.  Scientific  works, 

E  65 


Books  in  General 

theology,  and  shilling  fiction  are  equally  ugly  in 
both  countries.  But  there  are  to-day  in  Berlin, 
Leipzig,  and  Munich  at  least  a  dozen  firms 
publishing  for  the  ordinary  market  books  whose 
average  of  beauty  is  far  higher  than  that  reached 
by  the  books  of  any  considerable  English  pub- 
lishing firm.  Many  thousands  of  really  beauti- 
ful new  books  are  now  being  produced  every  year 
in  Germany  ;  and  of  what  can  be  done,  especially 
in  the  way  of  making  cheap  books  look  present- 
able, our  own  publishers  have  no  idea.  There 
is,  of  course,  a  much  larger  educated  reading 
public  in  Germany  than  in  England.  In  every 
bookshop  you  are  confronted  by  volumes  of 
Dehmel,  Hofmannsthal,  and  other  writers  who, 
were  they  Englishmen,  would  never  reach  large 
circles  of  readers  in  their  lifetimes.  Anthol- 
ogies of  contemporary  German  poets  sell  literally 
by  tens  of  thousands  ;  and  you  can  even  get  an 
infinite  variety  of  doses  of  classical  and  modern 
authors  by  dropping  pennies  into  automatic 
machines  on  the  stations.  This  much  may  be 
admitted  :  that  there  is  a  larger  literary  public 
and  more  interest  in  contemporary  art,  literary 
and  pictorial.  But,  even  granting  all  that,  the 
German  publishers  in  meeting  the  market  have 
shown  a  taste,  and  above  all  an  enterprise 
(sometimes  reaching  audacity,  no  doubt),  which 
most  of  our  own  publishers  have  never  revealed 
in  the  slightest  degree. 

To  give  a  full  account  of  the  show  is  beyond  my 
66 


May  1914:  The  Leipzig  Exhibition 

ability,  desire,  and  space.  But  in  looking  at  the 
latest  products  of  commercial  colour-printing  in 
the  French  pavilion  I  was  struck  by  the  extra- 
ordinary divorce  between  craftsmanship  and 
taste  in  modern  industry.  Here  were  some  of 
the  vilest  pictures  (I  don't  mean  morally)  ever 
moulded  by  the  mind  of  man  ;  yet  the  experts 
were  raving  over  them  as  being  the  last  word  in 
their  own  kind  of  colour-process.  Needless  to 
say,  the  exhibition,  not  being  half  over,  is  not  yet 
completely  ready.  The  Italian  pavilion,  when  I 
was  at  the  exhibition,  could  not  be  entered  at 
all,  and  there  were  other  lacunae  all  over  the 
place.  This  is  the  kind  of  thing  that  makes  the 
whole  world  kin. 

Amongst  the  German  authors  whose  portraits 
grace  the  walls  of  the  exhibition  is  Mr.  George 
Bernard  Shaw.  They  have  naturalized  him, 
like  Shakespeare,  and  the  next  thing  will  certainly 
be  a  statue  at  Weimar. 


Books  in  General 


The  Mantle  of  Sir  Edwin 

I  HAVE  just  spent  three  days  reading  Mr. 
E.  G.  Harman's  Edmund  Spenser  and  the 
Impersonations  of  Francis  Bacon,  pub- 
lished by  the  firm  of  Constable.  There  are 
books  which  he  who  runs  may  read  ;  there  are 
also  books  from  which  he  who  reads  will  run. 
This  tome  comes  into  neither  category.  It  is 
very  large  and  crowded  with  most  complicated 
detail ;  it  is,  though  quite  competently  written, 
devoid  of  literary  grace ;  and  it  supports  a 
monstrous  thesis  with  arguments  many  of  which 
are  of  staggering  absurdity.  Yet  in  point  of 
deadly  fascination  it  vies  with  the  basilisk.  It 
is  a  monument  of  the  "  scientific  method."  The 
author's  learning  and  industry  are  terrifying  ; 
his  tone  seems  completely  dispassionate  ;  he 
proceeds  from  discovery  to  discovery  with  mild 
ruthlessness  ;  and  not  the  most  uncompromising 
of  Wospolus  was  ever  more  sternly  resolved  to 
embrace  logical  conclusions.  His  chief  fault  is 
that  his  premises  are  usually  arbitrary  or  quite 
insufficient ;  but  the  objective  charm  of  his 
massive  progress,  as  of  a  steam-roller,  from  stage 
to  stage,  is  not  affected  by  this. 

Mr.  Harman  does  not  in  this  volume  discuss 
in  detail  Bacon's  authorship  of  Shakespeare's 
plays.  He  assumes  that.  He  assumes  also  that 
68 


The  Mantle  of  Sir  Edwin 

Bacon  did  publish  literature  under  the  rose  and 
that  he  did  employ  impersonators  ;  his  reasons 
being  that  he  had  to  express  his  feelings  and 
that  acknowledgment  of  authorship  would  have 
damaged  his  prospects  of  political  promotion. 
This  much  granted,  Mr.  Harman  looks  around  for 
writings  in  which  he  thinks  he  can  detect  traces 
of  Bacon  and  examines  the  evidence  for  their 
reputed  authorships.  He  does  not  descend  to 
the  puerile  level  of  the  late  Sir  Edwin  Durning- 
Lawrence,  with  his  "  Hie,  Hsec,  Hog."  He  says 
nothing  of  cryptogram.  But  in  case  after  case 
he  finds  (i)  that  there  are  marks  of  Baconian 
thought  and  language,  (2)  that  allegorical  re- 
ferences to  Bacon's  political  disappointments 
may  be  found,  (3)  that  documentary  evidence 
supporting  accepted  authorships  is  very  slight. 
Nothing  stops  him.  Where  there  is  a  real 
resemblance  in  style  things  are  easy.  Where 
there  are  marked  differences  we  are  asked  to 
note  the  fact  that  Bacon's  method  enabled 
him  to  write  in  a  variety  of  styles — as  though 
serious  writers  expressing  their  inmost  selves 
could  put  on  styles  like  trousers.  If  somebody 
has  borne  witness  that  an  Elizabethan  wrote 
his  own  works,  then  that  somebody  was  in  the 
plot  too. 

As  to  Spenser,  with  whom  Mr.  Harman 
chiefly  deals,  one  is  certainly  struck  with  the 
paucity  of  the  evidence  for  him.  We  know  less 
about  him  than  we  know  about  Shakespeare  ; 

69 


Books  in  General 

and  his  biographers  have  had  to  rely  almost 
entirely  upon  "  internal  evidence  "  drawn  from 
his  works.  But  personally  I  must  say  that  I 
prefer  their  methods  to  Mr.  Harman's.  He, 
analysing  exhaustively  the  plot  of  the  Faerie 
Queene,  with  its  Britomarts,  Arthegalls,  and 
Blatant  Beasts,  finds  a  knowledge  of  court  life 
that  could  not  be  possessed  by  Spenser,  who 
lived  in  Ireland  and  was  (according  to  him)  an 
ex-Board  School  boy  in  a  small  Civil  Service 
job — which  is  at  any  rate  politer  than  "  drunken, 
illiterate  clown."  This  is  question-begging  ;  but 
what  shall  we  say  of  the  assumption  that  if 
Spenser  had  written  the  poem  the  rivers  of 
Ireland  would  have  been  described  as  fully  as 
the  rivers  of  England  ?  Why  should  the  emi- 
grant Civil  servant  know  anything  about  the 
rivers  of  Ireland  ?  As  far  as  that  goes,  there  is 
one  slip  in  the  description  of  the  rivers  of  England 
which  indicates  to  my  mind  that  the  author 
relied  on  some  inaccurate  map  for  his  information 
about  them.  The  Baconian  authorship  forces 
Mr.  Harman  to  the  conclusion  that  some  of 
Spenser's  sonnets  were  written  by  Bacon  when 
he  was  eight  or  nine  years  old.  But  Mr.  Harman 
is  a  strong  man.  After  all,  Mozart  was  a  pre- 
cocious child,  so  why  not  Bacon  ?  He  does  not 
shrink  from  this  any  more  than  he  shrinks  from 
arguing  that  any  book  or  letter  which  favourably 
mentions  one  of  Bacon's  cryptic  works  must 
also  have  been  written  or  instigated  by  him. 
They  must  have  been  written  by  him,  and,  this 
70  ' 


The  Mantle  of  Sir  Edwin 

granted,  internal  corroboration  must  be  sought 
for.  Anything  is  good  enough  for  this  purpose. 
Mr.  Harman  even  finds  evidence  in  the  occurrence 
in  several  "  Baconian "  works  of  the  phrase 
"  golden  wyres  "  as  applied  to  the  Queen's  hair. 
If  he  would  read  the  body  of  Elizabethan  lyrics, 
or  even  extracts  of  them  in  such  a  contemporary 
anthology  as  England 's  Parnassus,  he  would  find 
that  an  Elizabethan  poet  could  no  more  help 
comparing  a  lady's  Hayre  to  Golden  Wyres  than 
he  could  help  likening  her  Teares  to  Pearles  or 
her  Brests  to  luorie. 

But  there  is  n«  space  here  for  detailed  examina- 
tion. It  is  enough  to  yield  oneself  to  the  pleasure 
of  following  the  Harmanian  trail.  I  have  noted 
the  works  which  in  the  course  of  his  narrative  or 
in  foot-notes  he  ascribes  to  Bacon.  The  Au- 
thorized Version  of  the  Bible  is  not  mentioned. 
But,  apart  from  his  voluminous  acknowledged 
writings,  Bacon  wrote  the  works  of  Spenser 
(including  the  Faerie  Queene,  the  longest  poem 
in  the  world,  which  Bacon  published  before  he 
was  out  of  his  twenties)  ;  the  works  of  Shake- 
speare ;  practically  the  whole  body  of  Elizabethan 
poetical  criticism  (including  Webbe's  Discourse 
of  Poesie,  Puttenham's  Art  of  Poesie,  Sidney's 
ApologU,  Daniel's  A  Defence  of  Ryme,  and  Meres's 
Palladis  Tamia)  ;  many  of  the  poems  of  Gas- 
coigne  (written  by  Bacon  before  he  was  twelve)  ; 
certain  works  imputed  to  Nashe,  Greene,  and 
Gabriel  Harvey ;  the  poems  of  Sir  Walter 

71 


Books  in  General 

Raleigh  and  the  Last  Fight  of  the  "  Revenge  "  ; 
the  works  of  Essex ;  Sidney's  Arcadia  and 
Astrophel  and  Stella  (with  this  key  Bacon  un- 
locked his  heart)  ;  Lyly's  Euphues  (a  long 
book)  ;  Bryskett's  Discourse  of  Civil  Life ;  Sir 
Humphrey  Gilbert's  Discourses  and  the  account 
of  his  last  voyage  ;  Leicester's  Commonwealth 
and  Leicester's  Ghost ;  and  other  minor  scraps. 
If  this  be  all  correct,  we  shall  have  to  revise  our 
opinion  of  the  Elizabethan  time  as  a  time  replete 
with  various  genius.  All  we  shall  be  able  to 
refer  to  now  will  be  "  the  spacious  Bacon  of 
great  Elizabeth." 

An  enormous  number  of  people — including 
supposed  writers  and  their  relations — must  have 
been  in  the  secret.  Sometimes  they  must  have 
marvelled  at  Bacon's  extraordinary  behaviour, 
as  for  instance  when  he  wrote  for  Raleigh  a 
laudatory  poem  on  the  Queen  : 

"  Bacon  (who,  in  my  opinion,  is  the  author  of 
the  poem)  makes  use  of  the  opportunity  in 
taking  up  the  personality  of  Ralegh  to  express 
his  own  feelings.  He  was  undoubtedly  most 
unhappy  at  his  exclusion  from  access  and  the 
waning  of  all  his  hopes  of  advancement.  This 
is  what  is  reflected  under  the  disguise  of  Ralegh's 
loss  of  favour  in  the  poem." 

They  must  have  wondered  how  on  earth  Bacon 
expected  his  grievances  to  be  remedied  if  his 
72 


"The  Cattle  of  the  Boyne" 

complaints  were  published  over  another  man's 
name,  and  why,  if  Raleigh  could  address  poems  to 
the  Queen  in  propria  persona  without  loss  of 
caste,  Bacon  could  not  do  the  same.  But  no 
doubt  most  of  them,  for  many  were  impecunious, 
did  not  allow  such  questions  to  bother  them  much. 
They  were  content  to  take  Bacon's  bribes  for 
the  use  of  their  names.  What  he  must  have 
spent  in  subsidies  to  sham  authors  one  gasps  to 
contemplate.  No  wonder  that  for  years  he  was 
in  such  financial  straits,  and  that  at  one  point 
things  came  to  such  a  pass  with  him  that  he  was 
arrested  for  debt. 


"The  Cattle  of  the  Boyne" 

I  HAVE  referred  before  to  the  frequency  of 
misprints    in    the    penny  Times.      It  does 
seem   a    pity  that   the  conductors  of    the 
paper  cannot  keep  it  up  to  its  old  traditions  in 
this  respect.    Last  week  there  was  a  more  curious 
instance  than  usual.     These  words  appeared  : 

"  The  anniversary  of  the  Cattle  of  the  Boyne 
was  celebrated  with  unusual  enthusiasm  through- 
out Canada." 

I  was  so  moved  by  the  report  of  these  zoo- 
logical novelties  that  I  made  a  little  poem  about 
them,  full  of  Celtic  twilight.  It  runs  thus  : 

73 


Books  in  General 

THE  SANDS  OF  BOYNE 

Och,  Geoffrey,  go  and  call  the  Cattle  home, 
And  call  the  Cattle  home, 
And  call  the  Cattle  home, 

Acrost  the  sands  of  Boyne. 
Shure,  ye1  re  the  bhoy  that's  got  inured  to  foam, 
So  come,  bring  in  the  koine. 

Och,  are  they  Jish,jlesh,  fowl  or  good  red  herrings  ? 
Perhaps  they  are  red  herrings, 
Forlorn  and  wildered  herrings, 

Strayed  from  their  native  broine, 
This  hapless  party  which  has  lost  its  bearings 
Fornint  the  sands  of  Boyne. 

No,  no,  they  have  no  herring  for  their  father. 
The  proof-reader's  their  father, 
A  most  prolific  father 

By  mishap  or  desoign. 
If  this  is  what  wan  penny  means,  Pd  rather 
Stump  up  the  ancient  coin 

Than  daily  find — Och  tempora,  Och  Times  ! — 
Bad  grammar  in  my  Times 
And  misprints  in  my  Times 

In  ivry  other  loine, 

Capped  by  this  worst  of  typographic  crimes 
"  The  CATTLE  of  the  Boyne  "  / 

But  perhaps  one  ought  not  really  to  complain 
of  misprints,  even  in  the  Times,  when  they  are 
funny. 

74 


August  1914 


August  1914 

AID  it  is  less  than  three  months  since  I  was 
writing  complacently  about  the  Leipzig 
book  exhibition !  I  wrote  about  the 
exquisite  collections  of  bindings  and  drawings, 
the  bands,  the  parading  crowds  of  peaceful 
Germans,  the  pavilions  of  all  nations  from 
Holland  to  Siam,  and  the  charming  Tudor 
structure  erected  by  Britain,  with  its  long  low 
halls  containing  cases  of  Shakespeare  folios  and 
editions  from  the  Kelmscott  Press.  Enormous 
crowds  from  all  over  Europe  would,  it  was  hoped, 
visit  the  exhibition  as  the  summer  wore  on. 
"  August,  of  course,"  said  the  officials  to  me, 
"  will  be  the  month." 

The  buildings  in  the  wide  Street  of  Nations 
are  still  there,  no  doubt.  The  flags,  perhaps, 
have  been  hauled  down,  but  those  files  of  white 
wood  and  plaster  palaces  still  stand  behind  their 
flower-beds  along  the  broad  avenues.  The 
crowds  are  dispersed.  The  officials  in  charge  of 
the  various  buildings  have  fled  to  their  respective 
domiciles.  The  cheerful  male  members  of  the 
Bavarian  Peasants'  Band  have  taken  off  their 
green  hats  and  put  on  helmets,  left  the  women 
behind,  and  gone  off  to  burn  villages  like  their 
own,  and  disembowel  sunburnt  French  peasants 
as  naturally  amiable  as  themselves.  Memories  so 

75 


Books  in  General 

recent  make  the  pit  of  one's  stomach  sink.  In 
May  last  a  German  barber  in  Berlin  had  his  razor 
at  my  throat,  and  when  he  scratched  my  skin  he 
was  most  concerned  and  apologetic.  "  Nescis,  mi 
fili,  quam  parva  sapientia  regitur  mundus."  The 
remark  was  made  by  a  Swedish  statesman  in  the 
eighteenth  century.  Voltaire,  looking  down  from 
heaven — if  one  may  risk  his  displeasure  by 
presuming  his  presence  in  so  uncongenial  a 
place — must  feel  that  since  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury there  has  been  no  great  change,  and  that 
the  human  race  is  as  horribly  ridiculous  an  in- 
stitution as  ever  it  was. 

But  here  we  are.*  Like  most  other  inhabitants 
of  the  "civilized  "  world,  I  have  for  the  last  week 
read  no  books,  but  only  newspapers.  Fourteen 
a  day  is  about  my  average,  which  means  nearly 
a  hundred  a  week.  And  nine-tenths  of  them 
contain  nothing  that  one  did  not  know  before. 
There  never  was  a  war,  since  telegraphs  were 
invented,  about  which  news  was  so  scarce. 
Almost  every  rumour  that  comes  through  is 
dubious,  and  it  is  invariably  contradicted.  In 
successive  issues  and  even  in  the  same  issue  of  a 
journal  one  reads  that  troops  have  and  have  not 
entered  a  certain  village,  that  somebody's  neu- 
trality has  and  has  not  been  violated,  and  that  a 
naval  engagement  has  and  has  not  taken  place. 
If  you  go  over  the  eight  pages  of  "  war  news  " 
in  a  daily  and  make  a  summary  of  the  unques- 

*  I  have  left  all  this  as  I  wrote  it. — S.  E. 
76 


August  1914 

tionable  facts  contained  therein,  as  distinguished 
from  the  doubtful  reports  and  the  office-written 
padding,  you  find  it  could  all  be  got  into  a  para- 
graph. We  have  frequently  heard  that  the  day 
of  the  war  correspondent  was  over.  We  heard 
it  during  the  Russo-Japanese  War — of  which  we 
certainly  got  very  little  news — and  we  heard  it 
during  the  Balkan  campaign.  But  at  the 
moment  if  writing  I  have  scarcely  seen  a  single 
item  regarding  a  single  encounter  which  looked 
indisputable  or  which  appeared  to  come  direct 
from  an  eye-witness.  Almost  all  the  information 
we  have  been  getting  has  come  either  from 
rumour  travelling  across  many  tongues  or  from 
official  sources.  Both  these  founts  of  news  are 
great  liars,  the  former  excelling  in  the  suggestio 
foist,  and  the  latter  both  in  that  and  in  the 
suppressio  veri. 

The  desperate  straits  in  which  we  have  been 
for  news  could  be  gathered  (if  in  no  other  way) 
from  the  outlandish  places  of  origin  ascribed  to 
reports  that  get  into  print.  Stockholm  informs 
one  that  advices  from  Teheran  report  a  conflict 
at  Toul ;  and  we  hear  that  the  Mercure  de 
Bruxelles  states  "  on  excellent  authority  "  that 
something  has  happened  at  Basle.  Deliberate 
fabrication  has  been  at  work  all  over  the  place. 
Our  good  old  friend  the  doctor,  with  the  cholera 
microbes  which  he  puts  into  wells,  even  turned 
up  at  the  very  start.  This  mythical  gentleman 
is  at  least  as  old  as  the  Franco-German  War  of 

77 


Books  in  General 

1870,  and  his  last  appearance  was  in  the  Balkans. 
No  sooner  does  a  war  start  than  one  of  the  com- 
batants hastens  to  describe  his  diabolical 
activities  in  the  hope,  presumably,  of  making  the 
world's  blood  boil  at  the  thought  of  an  "  outrage 
against  humanity." 

The  papers  cannot  be  blamed  for  printing 
rumours,  but  they  might  give  the  clearest  indica- 
tion, whenever  possible,  of  the  value  of  their 
sources.  Rumours  before  they  get  into  print 
presumably  travel  in  much  the  same  way  as 
after  they  get  into  print.  Of  how  rapidly 
"  news  "  develops  I  had  an  experience  in  a  club 
on  Tuesday  night.  A  late  evening  paper  printed 
a  brief  report,  stating  that  Aberdeen  doctors 
had  gone  to  attend  to  wounded  who  were  being 
landed  at  Cromarty.  Five  minutes  after  I  had 
seen  this,  I  was  told  by  a  member  that  single 
British  and  German  destroyers  had  had  a  brush 
off  the  Scottish  coast.  Five  minutes  after  that 
the  vessels  had  expanded  into  flotillas,  and 
within  the  hour  a  club  servant,  with  very  gloomy 
face,  remarked  to  me,  "  I  don't  know  if  you've 
heard  it,  sir,  but  there's  been  a  great  naval  battle 
in  the  North  Sea  and  the  British  Fleet  has  met 
with  an  awful  disaster."  With  correspondents 
kept  out  of  the  area  of  hostilities,  it  is  no  wonder 
that  by  the  time  reports  of  occurrences  reach  the 
persons  who  send  them  to  our  newspapers  they 
bear  very  little  relation  to  the  events  (if  any) 

78 


Mrs.  Barclay  sees  it  through 

which  have  originally  generated  them.  War 
correspondents  in  Europe  to-day  seem  to  be  able 
to  do  little  more  than  sit  in  friendly  foreign 
capitals  and  send  home  little  bits  of  news  out 
of  the  local  papers.  And  if  we  want  a  really 
accurate  and  full  description  of  the  big  battles, 
especially  the  big  naval  battles,  of  the  future  we 
shall  usually  have  to  wait  until  peace  allows 
combatants  to  publish  such  books  as  the  Japanese 
Human  Bullets,  describing  the  attack  on  Port 
Arthur,  and  those  vivid  Russian  books  which 
told  the  story  of  Rozhdestvensky's  voyage  to  the 
China  Sea  with  his  mouldy  squadron  and  the 
magnificent  and  pitiful  end  of  it  at  Tsushima. 
But  of  no  great  modern  war  will  the  whole  truth 
ever  be  properly  known.  Forces  work  over 
such  vast  areas  that  full  information  is  impossible 
to  collect. 


Mrs.  Barclay  sees  it  through 

OVER  the  turmoil  of  a  world  in  arms 
There  floats  a  rich  indomitable  coo  .  .  . 
'Tis  Barclay.  .  .  .  Though  excursions  and 

alarms 

Torture  the  flrmament,  though  Wilhelm  II 
In  shining  armour  waits  his  Waterloo, 
Though  on  all  sides  the  blood  rains  down  in  torrents 
Love's  interests  still  are  in  safe  hands  with  Florence. 

79 


Books  in  General 

What  though  the  rest  of  us  are  turning  tail, 
Assured  by  those  who  have  a  right  to  speak 

That  only  Patriotism  has  a  sale  ? 

She  knows  Love's  drawing-power  remains  unique ; 
Her  books  need  never  be  postponed  a  week  ; 

Sure  of  her  subject,  certain  of  her  vogue, 

She  has  no  need  to  adjourn,  much  less  prorogue. 

Business  as  usual.     Yet  who  knows,  who  knows 
Whether  she  has  not  chosen  the  better  part, 

Swelling  the  proud  full  sail  of  her  great  prose 
Still  with  the  gentler  zephyrs  of  the  heart, 
Rather  than  seize  an  Amazonian  dart, 

Leaping  into  the  middle  of  the  fray 

Like  certain  other  poets  of  the  day. 

Has  Robert  Bridges'9  success  with  fighting 
Been  such  as  to  encourage  emulation  ? 

Or  Dr.  Watson's  "  bit  them  in  the  Bight  "-ing  ? 
Or  the  same  author's  other  lucubration 
(Yet  one  more  blow  for  a  disthressful  nation) 

In  which,  dead  gravelled  for  a  rhyme  for  "  Ireland," 

He  struggled  out  with  "  motherland  and  sir  eland  "  ? 

Did  even  the  voice  from  Rudyard  Kipling's  shelf 
Say  anything  it  had  not  said  before  ? 

And  was  not  Stephen  Phillips  just  himself  ? 
And  was  not  Newbolfs  effort  on  the  war 
Distinctly  less  effective  than  of  yore  ? 

And  would  not  German  shrapnel  in  the  leg  be 

Less  lacerating  than  the  verse  of  Begbie  ? 


Mrs.  Barclay  sees  it  through 

When  the  Muse  seized  me,  in  this  manner,  by 
the  hair,  it  was  three  o'clock  in  the  morning,  and 
I  had  just  finished  the  new  novel  by  the  author 
of  The  Rosary.  Had  it  been  earlier  I  should 
have  written  more.  But  next  day  the  mouse  of 
inspiration  had  fled  to  its  hole  ;  the  spell  of  the 
book  had  been  dissipated  ;  my  vision  had  faded 
into  the  light  of  common  day ;  and  I  resumed 
my  consideration  of  the  position  of  Przemysl,  a 
place  of  which,  until  this  week,  I  had  never  heard. 
But  what  a  fascination  the  book  exercised  while 
one  was  reading  it !  I  can  well  understand  why 
Mrs.  Barclay  commands  a  greater  audience  than 
perhaps  any  other  living  writer.  She  can  beat 
the  basilisk  at  its  own  game. 

The  reader  is  swept  away  with  a  rush  of  strong 
emotion  at  the  very  start.  A  tall,  reticent, 
bronzed  man  arrives  by  the  boat  train  at  Charing 
Cross.  Thrown  over  by  a  woman,  he  has  been 
abroad  for  ten  years,  nursing  his  grief  and  creating 
a  reputation  as  a  novelist.  No  sooner  does  he 
get  to  the  station  than  he  extracts  from  the  coy 
bookstall  clerk  a  confession  that  to  him  the  books 
of  Rodney  Steele  are  the  best  in  the  world.  Lump 
in  the  throat  number  one  ;  and  a  sovereign  in  the 
pocket  of  the  clerk.  Steele  leaves  the  station  to 
drive  to  a  flat  a  friend  has  left  him.  Oh,  the 
fragrance  and  glitter  of  dear  old  smoky  London  ! 
Oh,  the  beauty  of  the  Queen  Victoria  Memorial ! 

"  Mysterious  through  the  gloom,  he  saw  the 
nation's  fine  memorial  to  a  deathless  memory. 

F  81 


Books  in  General 

The  gush  of  green  waters,  the  golden  figure  at  the 
summit,  needed  sunlight  for  their  better  seeing. 
But  clear  through  the  orange  darkness  gleamed 
the  white  marble  majesty  of  England's  Great 
Queen. 

"  Rodney  Steele  lifted  his  hand  in  reverent 
salute  as  he  passed.  .  .  . 

"  '  Lest  we  forget  ! '  quoted  Rodney  Steele 
as  he  looked  at  the  majestic  marble  figure,  throned 
outside  the  palace  above  the  rushing  waters.  '  Yet 
— could  we,  who  really  remember,  ever  forget  ?  ' 

The  rest  of  the  book  tells  how  he  was  wooed 
and  won  by  his  old  love,  now  a  widow.  She  had 
deserted  him  under  a  misapprehension  and  was 
resolved  to  recover  him.  She  therefore  took 
the  next  flat  to  his — or  rather  to  her  brother's, 
which  Steele  was  occupying.  She  had  heard 
that  owing  to  a  change  of  telephone  numbers  her 
brother  was  constantly  being  rung  up  by  mistake 
for  a  Hospital.  One  night  therefore  Steele  was 
rung  up  and  a  Kind  Voice  asked  for  the  Matron. 
The  voice  reminded  him  of  Madge.  He  began  to 
feel  so  lonely  that  he  willed,  with  all  his  will, 
that  the  unknown  Kind  Voice  should  ring  him 
up  again. 

"  '  Speak  to  me  again,'  he  said,  *  you,  who 
spoke  to  me  last  night.  Speak  to  me  again. 
What  wait  I  for  ?  I  wait  for  you  !  Just  now — 
in  my  utter  loneliness,  in  my  empty  solitude — I 
wait  for  you  '  .  .  . 
82 


Mrs.  Barclay  sees  it  through 

"  The  distant  clock  slowly  chimed  a  quarter 
past  the  hour  of  ten  ;  and — as  that  sound  died 
away — the  bell  of  the  telephone  rang." 

This  time  he  made  the  Kind  Voice  promise  to 
ring  him  up  nightly  in  order  to  console  him  in  his 
loneliness.  The  Kind  Voice  consented.  Ulti- 
mately on  the  telephone  they  discussed  (he  not 
revealing  his  identity  or  knowing  hers)  his 
novels.  This  is  the  kind  of  thing  they  say  over 
the  telephone : 

"  '  The  thing  of  first  importance  is  to  uplift 
your  readers  ;  to  raise  their  ideals  ;  to  leave 
them  with  a  sense  of  hopefulness,  which  shall 
arouse  within  them  a  brave  optimism  such  as 
inspired  Browning's  oft-quoted  noble  lines.'  ' 

When  finally  he  confesses  to  the  Kind  Voice 
that  his  life  has  been  ruined  by  a  girl  with  whom 
he  is  still  in  love,  Madge  thinks  the  time  ripe  for 
an  appointment.  They  meet.  He  finds  that 
the  Kind  Voice  has  been  Madge  all  the  time  and 
he  steels  his  breast  against  the  woman  who  has 
added  deception  to  her  previous  crime.  But  her 
"  gracious  gracefulness  "  and  other  qualities  win 
in  the  end,  and  we  finish  at  Christmas  with 
Herald  Angels  and  wedding-bells. 

Mrs.  Barclay  certainly  has  skill.  Nobody  else 
can  write  a  silly  story  half  so  well  as  she.  Her 
English  is  fluent  and  vivid,  although  loose  ;  her 

83 


Books  in  General 

humour  is  genuine  if  not  subtle  ;  and  she  handles 
her  dialogue,  such  as  it  is,  very  cleverly.  But, 
above  all,  she  knows  how  to  serve  out  the 
glamour  and  the  pathos  with  a  ladle.  The  hero 
of  this  book  is  as  generous  as  he  is  clever.  He 
can  conjure  ;  he  can  make  seagulls  settle  on  his 
shoulder  ;  and  he  does  kind  actions  to  widows. 
There  are  also  an  heroic  ex-soldier  who  saved  a 
man's  life  at  Spion  Kop  ;  a  bishop's  widow 
brimming  over  with  love  and  reminiscences  ;  and 
an  honest,  stupid  Englishman  with  no  thoughts 
of  self.  The  only  bad  character  dies,  and  the  end 
is  a  paean  of  joy.  As  long  as  she  can  keep  this 
up  Mrs.  Barclay  will  never  lose  her  hold.  In 
spite  of  the  war,  this  book,  I  should  think,  will 
sell  in  millions  and  millions. 

Vorwarts  reports  that  Dr.  Ludwig  Frank,  a 
member  of  the  Reichstag,  has  been  killed  in 
battle  near  Luneville.  Dr.  Frank,  who  sat  for 
Mannheim,  was  one  of  the  leaders  of  the  Southern 
Revisionists.  I  had  tea  with  him  at  the  Reichs- 
tag last  May.  He  took  me  into  the  Strangers' 
Gallery  of  the  House,  where  I  heard  Dr.  Lieb- 
knecht  make  one  of  his  anti-armament  speeches, 
the  one  in  which  he  incidentally  accused  a 
Prussian  general  of  negotiating  sales  of  decora- 
tions. It  seems  very  remote  now.  Dr.  Frank 
was  a  barrister ;  a  big  Jew  with  a  heavy,  hand- 
some face — sallow  skin,  aquiline  nose,  black 
moustache,  strong  chin,  dominating  eyes.  His 
romantic  air — he  was  supposed  to  resemble 


A  Topic  of  Standing  Interest 

Lassalle — made  him  very  popular  in  the  rich 
Jewish  salons  of  Berlin.  He  was  a  strong  man, 
and  one  would  have  said  an  ambitious  one.  But 
a  middle-class  man  who  enters  the  German 
Socialist  Party  sacrifices  so  much  that  he  ipso 
facto  clears  himself  of  the  suspicion  of  mere 
ambition. 


A  Topic  of  Standing  Interest 

THE  Oxford  University  Press  has  just 
issued  a  beautiful  little  edition  of 
Erasmus's  Praise  of  Folly,  with  a  good 
reproduction  of  Quentin  Matsys'  portrait  of 
Erasmus  as  a  frontispiece.  The  last  edition  of 
the  Encomium  Morice  with  which  I  am  familiar 
is  that  issued  in  1887  by  the  firm  of  Hamilton, 
Adams.  It  had  a  binding  which  did  not  please, 
but  contained  Holbein's  interesting  illustrations. 
Whether  any  considerable  sale  of  the  book  is 
likely  nowadays  I  very  much  doubt.  Erasmus's 
humour  was  an  improvement  on  mediaeval 
humour,  which,  except  in  a  few  cases,  cannot 
make  a  modern  man  laugh  save  sometimes 
through  the  brazenness  of  its  indecency.  Eras- 
mus was  a  child  of  the  Renaissance,  a  wit,  a 
scholar,  a  questioner  of  all  things,  a  man  of  the 
world,  a  revolutionary  conformist.  But  there 
are  long  dull  passages  in  his  most  famous  book, 
and  many  remarks  that  seemed  most  daring  to 

85 


Books  in  General 

the  men  of  his  own  time  are  to  us  platitudinous  ; 
whilst  he  often  labours  some  obvious  joke  in  the 
worst  mediaeval  way. 

At  the  same  time,  any  one  who  cares  to  go 
through  the  book  will  find  occasional  amusement. 
Erasmus  had  a  mild  theory  of  the  satirist's  rights. 
"  Wits,"  said  he,  "  have  always  been  allowed 
this  privilege,  that  they  might  be  smart  upon 
any  transactions  of  life,  if  so  be  their  liberty  did 
not  extend  to  railing  "  ;  and  he  disclaimed  a 
desire  to  imitate  Juvenal  by  "  raking  into  the 
sink  of  vices  to  procure  a  laughter.  With  these 
qualifications,  he  let  out  all  around  him  with 
some  vigour.  The  personification  of  Folly  is 
rather  feebly  sustained,  though  the  character  is 
pleasantly  introduced  with  the  sentence  :  "  I 
was  born  neither  in  the  floating  Delos  nor  on  the 
frothy  sea,  nor  in  any  of  the  privacies  where  too 
forward  mothers  are  wont  to  retire  for  undis- 
covered delivery."  But  the  obiter  dicta  on 
various  classes  of  men  who  have  often  been  the 
butts  of  satirists  since  his  day  are  still  entertaining 
and  must  in  his  own  time  have  been  shocking. 
He  refers  to  priests  as  "  wisely  foreseeing  that  the 
people,  like  cows,  which  never  give  down  their 
milk  so  well  as  when  they  are  gently  stroked, 
would  part  with  less  if  they  knew  more,  their 
bounty  proceeding  only  from  a  mistake  of 
charity,"  He  speaks  of  "  The  Carthusians, 
which  order  alone  keeps  honesty  and  piety 
among  them,  but  really  keeps  them  so  close  that 
86 


A  Topic  of  Standing  Interest 

nobody  ever  yet  could  see  them,"  and  he  is 
especially  down  on  the  scholastic  theologians* 
Sterne,  it  will  be  remembered,  described  a  dispute 
"  as  to  whether  God  could  make  a  nose  as  big 
as  the  steeple  of  Strasburg."  This  is  scarcely 
a  caricature  of  the  kind  of  discussion  ridiculed  by 
Erasmus  : 

"  Whether  this  proposition  is  possible  to  be 
true  ;  that  the  first  person  of  the  Trinity  hated 
the  second  ? 

"  Whether  God,  who  took  our  nature  upon  him 
in  the  form  of  a  man,  could  as  well  have  become  a 
woman,  a  devil,  a  beast,  an  herb,  or  a  stone. 
And  were  it  possible  that  the  Godhead  had  ap- 
peared in  the  shape  of  an  inanimate  substance, 
how  he  then  should  have  preached  his  gospel  ? 
Or  how  have  been  nailed  to  the  cross  ?  Whether 
if  St.  Peter  had  celebrated  the  eucharist  at  the 
same  time  our  Saviour  was  hanging  on  the  cross, 
the  consecrated  bread  would  have  been  transub- 
stantiated into  the  same  body  that  remained  on 
the  tree  ?  " 

Word-spinning  he  detested,  and  he  refers  the 
Nominalists,  the  Realists,  the  Thomists,  the 
Albertists,  the  Scotists,  etc.,  to  the  primitive 
disciples  who  were  "  well  acquainted  with  the 
Virgin  Mary,  yet  none  of  them  undertook  to 
prove  that  she  was  preserved  immaculate  from 
original  sin." 

87 


Books  in  General 

"  The  disciples  baptized  all  nations,  and  yet 
never  taught  what  was  the  formal,  material, 
efficient,  and  final  cause  of  baptism,  and  certainly 
never  dreamt  of  distinguishing  between  a  delible 
and  an  indelible  character  in  this  sacrament." 

Chaucer,  with  his  observations  about  relics 
and  "  pigges  bones,"  and  the  novelists  who  never 
hesitated  to  put  friars  in  the  most  ignominious 
positions  (e.g.  in  chimneys  and  under  tables) 
had  made  sport  of  the  clergy,  but  Erasmus's 
particular  method  of  battering  current  theology 
had  not  been  so  devastatingly  employed  since 
Lucian.  He  showed,  like  Rabelais,  that  it  is 
possible  to  reconcile  the  profession  of  Christianity 
with  something  of  what  a  recent  writer  calls 
"  the  old  Voltairean  love  of  humanity." 

Erasmus  made  the  familiar  sport  of  lawyers  and 
pedantic  critics.  He  would  have  agreed  with 
Sterne  :  "  Of  all  the  cants  which  are  canted  in 
this  canting  world — though  the  cant  of  hypo- 
crites may  be  the  worst — the  cant  of  criticism 
is  the  most  tormenting."  "  When  any  of  them," 
he  says, 

"  has  found  out  who  was  the  mother  of  Anchises, 
or  has  lighted  upon  some  old  unusual  word,  such 
as  bubsequa,  bovinator,  manticulator,  or  other 
like  obsolete  cramp  terms,  or  can,  after  a  great 
deal  of  poring,  spell  out  the  inscription  of  some 
battered  monument :  Lord !  what  joy,  what 
triumph,  what  congratulating  their  success,  as 


A  Topic  of  Standing  Interest 

if  they  had  conquered  Africa,  or  taken  Babylon 
the  Great !  " 

It  was  for  such  people's  benefit  that  he  must  have 
made  his  irritating  final  remark  :  "  I  hate  a 
hearer  that  will  carry  anything  away  with  him." 

Erasmus  was  the  mildest  of  the  famous 
satirists,  but  he  has  his  place  in  the  great  suc- 
cession, though  his  works  cannot  now  compete 
for  readableness  with  those  of  Lucian,  Rabelais, 
Swift,  Sterne,  and  Voltaire.  Satirists  have 
usually  been  considerable  plagiarists,  and  The 
Praise  of  Folly  has  an  important  historical  place 
in  the  development  of  this  kind  of  literature. 
Richard  Burton  cribbed  a  good  deal  from  it, 
in  spite  of  his  own  drastic  remark  about  persons 
who  "  lard  their  lean  bookes  with  fat  of  others' 
workes "  and  his  question  :  "  If  that  severe 
doom  of  Synesius  be  true  it  is  a  greater  offence 
to  steal  dead  men's  labours  than  their  cloaths, 
what  shall  become  of  most  writers  ?  "  But 
Burton  has  an  account  on  the  other  side,  for 
Sterne  later  on  reprinted  chunks  of  his  work 
almost  literally  without  any  acknowledgment 
whatever. 

The  new  Oxford  edition  gives  a  modernized 
reprint  of  the  Caroline  Version  by  John  Wilson. 
In  the  introduction  Mrs.  P.  S.  Allen  gives  some 
interesting  bibliographical  particulars.  Over 
forty  editions  of  the  Encomium  Morice  were 
published  in  the  author's  lifetime  ;  within  forty 


Books  in  General 

years  of  its  first  Latin  issue  French,  Italian,  and 
English  translations  had  been  published  ;  and 
later  versions  have  appeared  in  (amongst  other 
languages)  Swedish,  Czech,  Polish,  and  Modern 
Greek. 


Was  Cromwell  an  Alligator  ? 

SOME  people — who  at  least  avoid  the  error 
of  ascribing  the  invention  to  Steele  or 
Addison — say  that  Abraham  Cowley  was 
the  Father  of  the  English  Essay.  It  might 
alternatively  be  suggested  that  Q.  Horatius 
Flaccus  was  one  of  its  parents  and  Montaigne  the 
other  ;  Bacon  having,  so  to  speak,  a  watching 
brief  at  the  birth.  But  the  other  statement  is 
true  in  a  sense  :  for  though  in  patches  Bacon 
(and  Burton)  anticipated  the  tone  and  method  of 
that  type  of  writing  which  was  brought  to  its 
fullest  perfection  by  Charles  Lamb,  Cowley  was 
the  man  who  fixed  the  type.  His  essays  have 
just  been  republished  in  a  beautiful  little  edition 
of  the  Collected  Prose  Works,  issued  by  the 
Oxford  University  Press,  and  edited  by  Mr. 
A.  B.  Gough.  Mr.  Gough  is  a  most  pains- 
taking editor,  and  his  notes  are  abnormally 
full.  They  are  so  full  that  one  feels  that  most 
people  who  are  likely  to  acquire  such  a  book 
will  find  nine-tenths  of  them  unnecessary ;  but 
one  ought  not  to  grumble  at  that,  since  they  have 
90 


Was  Cromwell  an  Alligator 

the  complementary  advantage  of  always  supply- 
ing information  when  one  looks  for  it. 

The  edition  is  especially  to  be  welcomed  as 
there  are  many  persons  capable  of  appreciating 
Cowley  who  have  never  come  into  contact  with 
him.  "  Who  now  reads  Cowley  ?  "  Pope  asked 
in  1737  ;  if  the  question  were  repeated  to-day 
you  certainly  would  not  get  a  forest  of  hands 
raised,  even  in  an  audience  replete  with  pince-nez 
and  bulging  brows.  It  was  Cowley's  misfortune, 
as  it  was  his  ambition,  to  be  known  in  his  own 
days  as  one  of  the  greatest  poets  of  his  time  ; 
when  men  discovered  that  he  was  not  that,  they 
at  once  concluded  that  he  was  nothing  else.  Not 
that  his  poems  are  as  negligible  as  some  critics 
assert ;  his  mere  skill  and  neatness  make  him 
worth  reading.  Even  if  he  had,  as  Mr.  Gough 
remarks,  "  too  little  passion  and  spontaneity  to 
be  a  great  lyric  poet,"  he  was  at  any  rate  a  good 
metrist  and  a  most  admirable  phrasemaker. 
But  his  prose  writings  are  certainly  superior 
to  the  others  ;  and  this  is  true  not  only  of  the 
Essays.  His  Vision  Concerning  Oliver  Cromwell, 
for  example,  is  full  of  witty  and  whimsical 
things.  Occasionally  he  employs  very  drastic 
language,  as  when  he  refers  to  the  Protector  as  an 
"  alligator  "  and  when  he  abuses  him  for  medi- 
tating the  calling  in  of  the  Jews.  This  is  how 
Cowley  disports  himself.  The  italics  are  mine  : 

"  From  which  he  was  rebuked  by  the  universal 
outcry  of  the  Divines,  and  even  of  the  Citizens 

91 


Books  in  General 

too,  who  took  it  ill  that  a  considerable  number  at 
least  among  themselves  were  not  thought  Jews 
enough  by  their  own  Herod.  And  for  this  design, 
they  say,  he  invented  ...  to  sell  St.  Pauls  to 
them  for  a  synagogue,  if  their  purses  and  devo- 
tions could  have  reacht  to  the  purchase.  And 
this  indeed  if  he  had  done  onely  to  reward  that 
Nation  which  had  given  the  first  noble  example 
of  crucifying  their  King,  it  might  have  had  some 
appearance  of  gratitude,  but  he  did  it  onely  for 
love  of  their  Mammon  ;  and  would  have  sold 
afterwards  for  as  much  more  St.  Peters  (even  at 
his  own  Westminster)  to  the  Turks  for  a  Mos- 
quito [Mosque].  Such  was  his  extraordinary 
Piety  to  God,  that  he  desired  he  might  be  wor- 
shipped in  all  manners,  excepting  only  that 
heathenish  way  of  the  Common  Prayer  Book." 

But  this  strong  language  is  not  the  strong  lan- 
guage of  a  man  whose  breast  is  a  burning  fiery 
furnace  ;  it  is  the  invective  of  a  man  who  is 
amused  by  his  opponents  and  who  regards  them 
chiefly  as  pegs  for  cunning  sentences.  His  hard 
words  would  certainly  have  broken  no  bones  ; 
and  one  can  even  imagine  that,  in  the  secrecy 
of  their  chambers,  the  Puritans  themselves — at 
all  events,  the  less  ironsided  of  them — may  have 
shaken  their  sides  over  his  character-sketch  of  the 
man  whom  they  doubtless  referred  to  in  public 
as  "  our  great  leader." 

But  if  such  qualities  are  defects  when  a  man  is 
92 


Was  Cromwell  an  Alligator 

writing  political  tracts  or  attempting  the  higher 
flights  of  poetry,  they  are  invaluable  to  him  if 
he  is  writing  essays.  Cowley's  Essays — and  his 
Prefaces  are  as  good — are  most  delightful,  and 
they  have  as  personal  a  turn  as  Lamb's.  They 
all,  virtually,  have  one  text  :  the  Sabine  Farm 
text ;  the  retired  Urbs  in  Rure  text.  They 
speak  of  the  country's  charms  in  the  ex-towns- 
man's way  ;  they  gibe  at  the  turmoil  and  press  of 
cities  in  a  manner  which  attests  a  still  lively 
interest  in  these  contemptible  things ;  they 
praise  the  pleasures  of  horticulture,  solitary 
meditation,  and  a  Kempis's  "  little  book  in  a 
corner."  Their  learning  is  lightly  worn  ;  their 
language  natural ;  their  arguments  not  so  serious 
as  to  stand  in  the  way  of  any  jest  that  offers 
itself  ;  and  many  passages  in  them  might  almost 
as  well  have  been  written  in  1720  or  1820  as  in 
1660.  These,  for  instance : 

"  There  is  no  saying  shocks  me  so  much  as  that 
which  I  hear  often  that  a  man  does  not  know  how 
to  pass  his  Time.  'Twould  have  been  but  ill 
spoken  by  Methusalem  in  the  nine  hundred 
sixty  ninth  year  of  his  Life. 

"  I  have  been  drawn  twice  or  thrice  by  company 
to  go  to  Bedlam,  and  have  seen  others  very  much 
delighted  with  the  fantastical  extravagancie  of 
so  many  various  madnesses,  which  upon  me 
wrought  so  contrary  an  effect,  that  I  always 
returned,  not  only  melancholy,  but  e'en  sick 
with  the  sight.  My  compassion  there  was 

93 


Books  in  General 

perhaps  too  tender,  for  I  meet  a  thousand 
Madmen  abroad,  without  any  perturbation ; 
-though,  to  weigh  the  matter  justly,  the  total  loss 
of  Reason  is  less  deplorable  than  the  total 
depravation  of  it. 

"  I  thought  when  I  went  first  to  dwell  in  the 
country,  that  without  doubt  I  should  have  met 
there  with  the  simplicity  of  the  old  Poetical 
Golden  Age  :  I  thought  to  have  found  no  in- 
habitants there,  but  such  as  the  Shepherds  of 
Sir  Phil.  Sydney  in  Arcadia,  or  of  Monsieur  d'Urfe 
upon  the  Banks  of  Lignon  ;  and  began  to  con- 
sider with  myself,  which  way  I  might  recommend 
no  less  to  Posterity  the  Happiness  and  Innocence 
of  the  Men  of  Chertsea ;  but  to  confess  the 
truth,  I  peceived  quickly,  by  infallible  demon- 
strations, that  I  was  still  in  Old  England. 

"  The  civilest,  methinks,  of  all  Nations,  are 
those  whom  we  account  the  most  barbarous. 
There  is  some  moderation  and  good  Nature  in  the 
Toupinamhaltians  who  eat  no  men  but  their 
Enemies,  whilst  we  learned  and  polite  and 
Christian  Europeans,  like  as  many  Pikes  or  Sharks 
prey  upon  everything  we  can  swallow." 

The  last  sentence  reads,  perhaps,  more  like  a 
certain  living  writer  than  like,  say,  Charles 
Lamb. 

The  best  of  Cowley's  Essays  are  Of  My  Self 
and  Of  Greatness.  I  have  no  room  to  quote  them 
at  length.  The  first — in  which  he  is  writing  of 
9-1- 


Was  Cromwell  an  Alligator 

poetry  and  of  his  childhood's  memories — is  more 
full  of  feeling  than  is  usua  with  him.  The  other 
is  one  of  the  most  picturesque  pieces  of  light 
moralizing  in  the  language,  full  of  what  we  all 
call  the  Playful  Irony  of  the  Gentle  Elia,  as  in 
sentences  like  :  "  The  Ancient  Roman  Emperours, 
who  had  the  Riches  of  the  whole  world  for  their 
Revenue,  had  wherewithal  to  live  (one  would  have 
thought)  pretty  well  at  ease,  and  to  have  been 
exempt  from  the  pressures  of  extream  Poverty  "  ; 
and  it  describes  the  pleasures  of  littleness  most 
alluringly.  But  somehow,  in  spite  of  his  asser- 
tions, one  never  quite  believes  in  the  genuineness 
of  his  middle-aged  preference  for  "  Prettiness," 
as  against  "  Majestical  Beauty."  One  suspects 
the  existence  in  him  of  a  disappointed  ambition, 
a  hankering  after  action,  which  frequently 
afflict  men  who  are  constitutionally  fitted  for 
nothing  but  looking  on  and  making  charming 
comments.  But  he  had  certainly  been  very 
badly  treated  by  the  Stuart  family,  which  he  had 
faithfully  served.  The  Restoration  gave  him 
neither  employment  nor  money.  It  gave  him, 
however,  a  very  fine  funeral.  Evelyn  says  that 
his  coffin  was  followed  to  the  Abbey  by  a  hundred 
noblemen's  coaches  and  large  numbers  of  wits, 
bishops,  and  clergymen. 


95 


Books  in  General 


The  Depressed  Philanthropist 

I  DO  not  see  why  any  one  but  myself  should 
be  interested  in  the  mere  fact  that,  except 
in  the  way  of  casual  reference,  I  have 
always  avoided  writing  a  line  about  Mr.  John 
Galsworthy.  But  as  one's  feelings  commonly 
typify  those  of  some  section  or  other  of  one's 
fellows  it  may  be  relevant  to  one's  purpose.  I 
frequently  begin  writing  something  about  Mr. 
Galsworthy  and  then  tear  it  up.  I  constantly 
feel  like  abusing  him,  and  am  then  checked  by 
the  thought  that  after  all  he  is  too  good  a  man  to 
go  for.  He  is  a  sensitive  and  humane  man  of 
very  great  intelligence.  He  is  a  conscientious 
writer  and  an  acute  observer.  He  has  a  great 
respect  for  truth  and  a  desire  to  state  it  at  all 
costs.  He  detests  pettinesses,  hypocrisies,  and 
shams.  On  almost  every  issue  that  might  arise 
I  am  sure  I  should  find  myself  voting  on  the 
same  side  as  he,  though  perhaps  we  might  differ 
in  our  views  of  the  relative  importance  to  be 
attached  to  the  problem  of  World  Peace  and 
that  of  the  hardships  inflicted  by  mankind  on 
ants,  wasps,  and  bees.  And  yet  as  I  read  his 
books  I  feel  as  if  I  were  in  some  cheerless  seaside 
lodging-house  on  a  wet  day. 

I  have  just  been  reading  his  new  miscellany 
The    Little   Man.    The    book    does    not    show 


The  Depressed  Philanthropist 

his  qualities  at  their  best,  but  it  shows  his 
defects  at  their  worst.  The  principal  contents 
are  The  Little  Man  and  Studies  in  Ex- 
travagance. The  first  is  a  short  play  showing 
how  a  German,  an  American  full  of  altrustic 
platitudes,  and  two  self-contained  and  "  proper  " 
English  people  shrink  in  the  most  selfish  and 
cowardly  way  from  a  forlorn  baby  suspected 
(falsely,  of  course,  for  the  sake  of  the  extra 
irony)  of  typhus.  The  "  studies  "  are  examina- 
tions of  various  "  types  "  such  as  "  The  Artist," 
"The  Plain  Man,"  "The  Housewife,"  "The 
Preceptor,"  and  "The  Latest  Thing."  And 
there  is  none  of  them  good — no,  not  one.  Mr. 
Max  Beerbohm  once  did  a  cartoon  of  Mr.  Gals- 
worthy Looking  upon  Life  and  Finding  it  Foul, 
Life  being  represented  as  a  fat  and  ferocious 
goblin  with  horns,  a  forked  tail,  and  teeth  like  a 
wild  boar's.  It  was  just  a  little  wrong.  Mr. 
Galsworthy's  vision  should  not  have  had  so  much 
of  the  positive  about  it.  He  does  not  find  Life 
vigorously  diabolical,  but  meanly  cruel  and 
pallidly  contemptible.  Many  great  men  have 
been  gloomy  or  pessimistic.  Mr.  Hardy  is  not 
exactly  a  merry  grig,  Schopenhauer  was  con- 
sistently disgruntled,  and  the  man  who  would 
look  for  joie  de  vivre  in  Leopardi  would  look  in 
vain.  And  as  Mr.  Galsworthy  suggests  himself 
— it  is  a  commonplace — it  is  often  the  duty  of 
a  serious  contemporary  writer  to  be  horrifying, 
unpleasant,  and  shocking.  The  regeneration  of 
mankind — to  continue  the  commonplace — is  not 

G  97 


Books  in  General    , 

possible  if  we  hold  the  view  that  things  may  be 
done  that  may  not  be  discussed,  and  that  the 
failings  of  man  and  the  diseases  of  society  should, 
as  far  as  possible,  be  stowed  away  in  the  cupboard, 
where  the  skeletons  are.  What  is  wrong  with 
Mr.  Galsworthy  is  that  one  cannot  quite  believe 
him.  One  suspects  him  of  cooking  the  evidence. 
One  does  not  mind  a  man  presenting  a  black  view 
of  life  if  (a)  he  is  temperamentally  inclined  to  it 
and  can  be  melancholy  with  a  certain  gusto,  or 
(£)  if,  being  a  professed  realist,  he  appears  to  have 
taken  cognizance  of  every  aspect  that  has  pre- 
sented itself  to  him.  But  Mr.  Galsworthy 
presents  so  one-sided  a  case  that  we  at  once 
suspect  his  bona  fides  and  react  against  his  views. 
It  would  be  unfair  to  classfy  him  with  that 
school  of  novelists  who  give  their  books  titles 
like  Dull  Monotony  and  live  up  to  their  titles  by 
giving  a  photographic  reproduction  of  an  in- 
tolerable tedium  peculiar  to,  and  comprehensible 
by,  the  households  which  they  themselves  afflict. 
He  usually  escapes  being  thoroughly  boring 
partly  because  of  his  gift  for  occasionally  happy 
and  incisive  phrase  and  partly  because  here  and 
there,  behind  the  grey  brow  of  the  dejected 
Hanging  Judge,  one  catches  a  gleam  of  something 
more  exhilarating  than  his  expressed  sentiments. 
But  he  is  often  very  nearly  dull,  all  the  same  : 
for  his  realism  is  often  bogus.  He  starts  with  an 
intention  to  paint  a  caricature  in  greys,  and  a 
caricature  which  is  not  amusing.  Even  in  his 
very  well-made  plays  the  characters  are  not. 


The  Depressed  Philanthropist 

to  my  mind,  usually  interesting  in  themselves. 
One  does  not  believe  in  them  as  persons.  They 
are  just  a  set  of  types,  as  stagy  and  unreal  as 
the  old  stage  figures  of  melodrama,  though  they 
are  called  charwomen,  clerks,  magistrates,  and 
company  directors  instead  of  being  called  Irish- 
men, highwaymen,  and  wicked  baronets.  His 
plays  argue  cases,  but  they  do  not  present  life 
as  we  know  it.  I  find  the  same  sort  of  unreality 
about  his  prose  ;  and,  since  the  unreality  takes 
the  form  of  making  mankind  look  utterly  paltry 
and  uninteresting,  one  wonders  why  on  earth  a 
man  who  has  such  an  opinion  of  it  bothers  about 
it  at  all. 

So  in  The  Little  Man  and  in  these  studies.  All 
these  average  people  do  not  get  a  dog's  chance  ; 
we  have  all  sinned  and  fall  short  of  the  glory 
of  God,  but  we  really  are  not  quite  so  dull, 
feeble,  and  silly  as  all  this.  Some  characteristics 
— as  those  of  the  Plain  Man — are  very  cleverly 
recorded,  but  the  whole  of  the  man  is  not  here, 
nor  even  the  most  important  parts  of  him.  As 
an  illustration  of  Mr.  Galsworthy's  pseudo- 
realistic  method  take  him  on  the  ground  most 
favourable  to  him — that  of  the  beef-and-whisky- 
fed  sportsman  : 

"  What  led  to  him  was  anything  that 
ministered  to  the  coatings  of  the  stomach  and 
the  thickness  of  the  skin  .  .  .  to  be  '  hard  '  was 
his  ambition,  and  he  moved  through  life  hitting 

99 


Books  in  General 

things,  especially  balls — whether  they  reposed 
on  little  inverted  tubs  of  sand  or  moved  swiftly 
towards  him,  he  almost  always  hit  them,  and 
told  people  how  he  did  it  afterwards.  He  hit 
things,  too,  at  a  distance,  through  a  tube,  with  a 
certain  noise.  .  .  ." 

Now,  apart  from  the  fact  that  a  full  and  accurate 
description  of  a  sportsman  would  put  in  many 
things  Mr.  Galsworthy  leaves  out  (e.g.  some 
indication  that  he  was  a  human  being,  as  we 
know  the  species),  this  is  not  good,  though  it  is 
superficially  plausible  description,  even  so  far  as 
it  goes.  The  plain  statement  that  the  gentleman 
played  golf  and  cricket  and  shot  a  good  deal 
would  convey  a  better  idea  of  him  than  this 
specious  circumlocution.  To  say  that  a  man  is 
smoking  a  cigarette  positively  contains  a  greater 
measure  of  suggestion  than  to  say  that  he  is 
inhaling  grey  fumes  through  a  cylinder  of  paper 
filled  with  dried  herbs.  Much  of  Mr.  Gals- 
worthy's attack  upon  all  kinds  of  men  and  women, 
self-centred  authors,  idealists  who  oppress  their 
wives,  worldly  women  who  have  never  found 
their  souls,  cultured  people  who  chase  the  new, 
and  Philistines  who  run  away  from  the  new,  has 
the  same  sort  of  defect.  It  is  really  "  guying  " 
which  passes  for  photography  merely  because  it 
is  heavy-footed  and  unamusing.  I  object  to  Mr. 
Galsworthy's  ostensible  view  of  life  partly 
because  I  don't  believe  he  takes  it.  and  partly 
because  if  he  did  I  should  think  it  an  absurdly 

100 


A  Polyphloisboisterous  Critic 

unjust  view.  At  heart  a  humanitarian,  he  has 
got  into  a  dismal  and  costive  kind  of  literary 
method  which  makes  him  look  like  a  fretful 
and  dyspeptic  man  who  curls  his  discontented 
nostrils  at  life  as  though  it  were  an  unpleasing 
smell.  As  Ibsen  used  so  often  to  remark,  there 
is  a  great  deal  wrong  with  the  drains  ;  but  after 
all  there  are  other  parts  of  the  edifice. 


A  Polyphloisboisterous  Critic 

I  REMEMBER— that  is  to  say,  I  wish  I 
remembered,  for  I  have  forgotten  most  of 
it — a  poem  that  I  used  to  recite  at  my 
mother's  knee.  Its  subject  was  an  antediluvian 
man  of  sesquipedalian  height,  who  let  out  the 
blood  of  an  ichthyosaurus  with  a  polyphlois- 
boisterous  shout ;  and  its  claim  to  attention  was 
a  plethora  of  polysyllables  very  embarrassing 
to  an  infant,  and  indeed  to  any,  tongue.  It 
was  of  that  poem  that  I  was  reminded  whilst 
reading  European  Dramatists,  by  Archibald 
Henderson. 

Mr.  Henderson,  an  American  professor,  is  not  a 
stranger  to  the  British  public.  It  was  he  who 
produced,  a  few  years  ago,  a  biographical  study 
of  Mr.  Bernard  Shaw  so  vast  that  a  single  copy 
might  well  have  served — were  not  Mr.  Shaw 
still  happily  with  us — as  Mr.  Shaw's  tombstone. 

101 


Books  in  General 

The  work,  indeed  (to  use  the  phrase  Mr.  Hender- 
son himself  applies  to  a  play  of  Strindberg's), 
was  "  colossal  in  its  incommensurability."  It 
was  the  kind  of  book  one  had  thought  could 
only  be  produced  by  a  large  committee  of  Chinese 
scholars  ;  and  although  it  did  not  lead  one  to 
respect  the  author's  powers  of  judging  the  rela- 
tive importance  of  his  various  facts,  it  at  least 
compelled  one  to  admire  his  colossal  energy 
and  his  incommensurable  supply  of  these  facts. 
From  European  Dramatists  one  gets  precisely 
the  same  feeling.  Parts  of  the  book  have  appeared 
in  journals  published  in  Boston  and  in  Berlin, 
in  Stuttgart  and  in  Stockholm,  in  Helsingfors, 
Paris,  New  York,  and  Ghent.  And  one  may  be 
sure  that  Mr.  Henderson  could  have  talked  to 
the  editors  of  all  these  papers  and  beaten  all  of 
them  hollow  in  knowledge  of  the  modern  litera- 
ture of  their  respective  countries.  The  actual 
subjects  of  his  papers  are  familiar  enough  : 
Strindberg,  Ibsen,  Shaw,  Maeterlinck,  Granville 
Barker,  and  Wilde.  But  in  discussing  them  he 
shows  an  amazing  acquaintance  with  every- 
body who  has  recently  written  anything  in  any 
country.  He  can  refer  you  to  the  December 
1913  issue  of  the  Przemysl  Review;  he  can  tell 
you  what  the  Servian  critic,  Ivan  Peckitch, 
thinks  of  the  Finnish  poet,  D.  D.  Bilius.  He 
knows  all  about  everything,  though  one  is  not 
quite  sure  that  he  knows  anything  else.  But 
what  chiefly  pleases  one  about  him  is  not  so 
much  what  he  says  as  the  charming  way  he  says 

102 


A  Polyphloisboisterous  Critic 

it.  Like  Hudibras,  he  cannot  ope  his  mouth  but 
out  there  flies  a  trope.  Everything  happens  with 
him  in  metaphors  ;  people  are  always  digging 
into  soils,  moulding  things  in  fires  or  clothing 
them  in  vestures.  And  above  all  he  is  poly- 
syllabic and  rotund  of  speech. 

He  begins  well  with  Strindberg,  of  whose  first 
married  years  he  observes  that  they  "  were 
undoubtedly  happy — certainly  in  the  passional 
sense,  if  not  in  the  restful  consciousness  of 
hallowed  union."  "  In  1886,"  he  proceeds, 
"  Strindberg  began  to  be  obsessed  with  the 
monomania  of  animadversion  against  the  female 
sex."  Later,  "  goaded  by  titanic  ambition,  he 
cast  off  the  shackles  of  provinciality  for  the 
freedom  of  cosmopolitanism" — i.e.  he  travelled. 
Ibsen  and  Strindberg  were  "  so  antipodal  in 
temperament,  yet  so  cognate  in  the  faculties  of 
intuitive  perception  and  searching  introspective- 
ness."  One  of  Strindberg's  works  blurs  the 
vision  of  the  average  spectator,  "  with  its  kineto- 
scopic  heterogeneity  of  spiritual  films  "  :  Peer 
Gynt  (on  the  other  hand,  shall  I  say  ?)  stood  for 
"  the  disciplinary  bankruptcy  of  laxity."  "  Con- 
cretizes "  and  "  inscenation  "  are  the  kind  of 
words  he  rejoices  in,  but  perhaps  two  or  three 
longer  extracts  will  better  illustrate  the  quality  of 
his  style  : 

"  To  peep  into  the  workshop  of  the  great 
master's  brain  and  assist  at  the  precise  balancing 

103 


Books  in  General 

of  the  arguments  pro  and  c on,  to  observe  how  an 
idea  first  finds  lodgment  in  the  brain,  and  to 
note  the  gradual  symmetrical  accretion  of  the 
fundamental  nuclei  for  the  final  creation — this 
is  a  privilege  that  has  perhaps  [sic]  never  fully 
been  realized  by  any  observer. 

"  America  is  young  and  hopeful,  at  least ;  it 
is  not  peopled,  we  are  confidently  assured,  with 
soul-sick  tragedians  mouthing  their  futile  pro- 
tests against  the  iron  vice  of  environment,  the 
ineradicable  scar  of  heredity,  the  fell  clutch  of 
circumstance. 

"  Yet  the  reiterant  ejaculations,  the  hyper- 
ethereal  imaginings  of  the  symbolist  manner, 
are  the  symptoms  of  a  tentative  talent,  not  of 
an  authoritative  art." 

I  don't  think  Professor  Henderson's  remarks 
are  ever  quite  meaningless,  but  I  suspect  that 
the  most  elephantine  of  them,  if  reduced  to 
essentials,  would  be  as  commonplace  as  his  more 
comprehensible  statements  that  "  Social  criticism 
is  the  sign  manual  of  the  age,"  and  that  "  the 
emancipation  of  woman,  in  the  completest  sense, 
is  on  the  way  "  — which  last  gets  a  whole  para- 
graph to  itself.  But  it  is  pleasant  to  read  it  all ;  to 
see  "  Ibsen,  Pinero,  or  Phillips  "  thus  bracketed ; 
to  learn  that  Wilde's  father  was  also  "  the  father 
of  modern  otology,"  and  to  be  told  that  Maeter- 
linck's "  eternal  prayer  "  is,  "  Oh,  that  this  too, 
too  solid  flesh  would  melt  "  !  That  is  on  page 
203  ;  but  the  effect  is  somewhat  marred  by  the 
104 


"Another  Century,  and  then  .  .  ." 

fact  that  precisely  the  same  "  cry  "  has  been, 
on  page  37,  attributed  to  Strindberg.  Personally 
I  plump  for  Maeterlinck. 


u  Another  Century,  and  then   .   .   ." 

THERE  is  a  certain  sort  of  dull  criticism 
which  Dr.  Johnson  admirably  stigmatized 
when  he  said  that  "  there  is  no  great 
merit  in  telling  how  many  plays  have  ghosts  in 
them  and  how  this  ghost  is  better  than  that." 
A  great  deal  of  American  (not  to  speak  of  German) 
academic  criticism  belongs  to  this  category ; 
and  especially  those  theses  which  are  written 
by  postgraduate  students  and  candidates  for 
the  doctor's  degree.  These  persons,  when  they 
are  not  exhuming  dead  reputations  from  well- 
deserved  sepulchres,  show  an  uncanny  ingenuity 
in  inventing  original  classifications  and  institut- 
ing unnecessary  comparisons.  But  now  and 
again  such  students  manage  to  produce  some 
enlightening  piece  of  "  research "  work,  and 
The  French  Revolution  and  the  English  Novel 
(Putnams)  is  one  of  the  best  of  its  kind.  It  is 
by  Allene  Gregory ;  and  as  I  cannot  tell  from  the 
name  whether  she  is  a  gentleman  or  a  lady,  I 
shall  call  him  Miss. 

"  This  study  in  the  tendenz  novel  was  begun 
with  the  idea  of  paralleling  Dr.  Hancock's  book, 

105 


Books  in  General 

The  French  Revolution  and  the  English  Poets." 
That  is  the  first  sentence  of  the  preface,  and  it 
has  a  strictly  academic  flavour  about  it.  The 
book  is  a  "  scientific  "  treatise  ;  it  would  not  have 
been  written,  so  to  say,  either  by  a  French  Revo- 
lutionary or  by  an  English  novelist.  If  it  dealt 
with  the  purely  literary  merits,  which  are  few, 
of  its  subjects,  it  would  be  a  useless  sort  of  book. 
But  its  real  purpose  is  to  supply  a  chapter  to  the 
history  of  ideas,  and  especially  Liberal  political 
and  social  ideas.  Many  people  talk  as  though 
they  thought  that  the  novel  which  canvasses  the 
"  problems  "  of  sex,  property,  and  religion  were 
an  invention  of  the  last  thirty  years  ;  and  many 
others  are  under  the  impression  that  Charles 
Dickens  was  the  first  person  to  use  fiction — 
though  not,  of  course,  the  first  person  to  employ 
fictions — for  the  promotion  of  legislation.  Books 
about  Godwin  and  Mary  Wollstonecraft  are 
occasionally  written  ;  and  quite  recently  Thomas 
Holcroft,  one  of  the  chief  of  our  Revolutionary 
novelists,  was  given  considerable  notice  in  Mr. 
Brailsford's  excellent  little  book  in  the  Home 
University  Library.  But,  as  far  as  my  expe- 
rience goes,  there  seem  to  be  very  few  who  know 
that  England  produced  a  century  ago  a  whole 
group  of  novelists  whose  principal  aim  was  not 
to  "  tell  a  straightforward  story  "  or  make  the 
flesh  creep,  but  to  blow  up  the  foundations  of 
society  with  the  gunpowder  in  the  jam. 

Miss  Gregory's  book  is  very  comprehensive. 
1 06 


"Another  Century,  and  then  .  .  ." 

Her  principal  figures  are  Holcroft,  Godwin, 
and  Robert  Bage  ;  and  she  gives  synopses  of 
all  their  novels,  with  extracts  illustrating  their 
doctrines.  Holcroft,  one  of  the  most  lovable 
figures  in  the  history  of  English  democracy,  was 
the  sort  of  man  who  is  regarded  as  an  obscure 
crank  in  his  lifetime,  then  forgotten  for  a  time, 
and  ultimately  recognized  as  a  person  of  historical 
importance.  He  lived  a  long  life,  and  harmed 
nobody  in  the  course  of  it.  As  a  stable-boy  in  a 
racing  stable  he  read  Addison,  Bunyan,  and 
Swift  (whose  tribute  to  the  Houyhnhnms  must 
have  had  a  local  colour  for  him)  ;  he  was  after- 
wards a  strolling  actor,  a  hack  writer,  translator, 
novelist,  and  playwright,  one  of  his  plays  being 
The  Road  to  Ruin.  When  the  Society  for  Consti- 
tutional Reformation  was  raided  Holcroft  was 
arrested  with  Thomas  Hardy  and  Home  Tooke, 
and  it  was  alleged  against  him,  as  justification 
for  a  charge  of  high  treason,  that  he  had  extolled 
moral  as  against  physical  force.  His  associates 
being  acquitted,  he  was  never  brought  to  trial : 
there  comes  a  point  at  which  even  a  Government 
begins  to  feel  it  is  making  an  ass  of  itself.  Hoi- 
croft's  courage  never  weakened  "  when  Words- 
worth, Coleridge,  Southey,  and  even  Blake  had 
recanted,  and  Godwin  and  Paine  had  fallen 
silent,  and  all  the  world  seemed  to  have  forgotten 
its  vision  of  democracy."  He  himself  stated  in 
terms  :  "  Whenever  I  have  undertaken  to  write 
a  novel  I  have  proposed  to  myself  a  specific  moral 
purpose."  His  best  novels  are  Hugh  Trevor  and 

107 


Books  in  General 

Anna  St.  Ives.  In  the  latter  the  hero,  Frank 
Henley,  who  shocks  the  orthodox  by  taking 
service  rather  than  self-interest  as  his  guiding 
principle,  remarks  : 

"  Let  men  look  around  and  deny  if  they  can 
that  the  present  wretched  system  of  each  pro- 
viding for  himself  instead  of  the  whole  for  the 
whole  does  not  inspire  suspicion,  fear,  and  hatred. 
Well,  well ! — another  century,  and  then  ..." 

Just  a  century  has  passed. 

Of  Godwin's  novels  Caleb  Williams  is  the  only 
one  that  is  at  all  read  nowadays.  In  spite  of  its 
impossibilities  of  character  and  action,  it  is  a 
very  good  tract,  especially  where  it  deals  with 
the  prison  system.  Miss  Gregory's  extracts  from 
Caleb  Williams  might  have  been  more  profuse  ; 
but  she  gives  interesting  accounts  of  St.  Leon 
and  Fleetwood.  In  the  first  of  these  a  gentleman 
who  possesses  the  philosopher's  stone  breaks 
into  long  reflections  on  "  gold  versus  actual 
wealth "  ;  in  the  other  there  are  eloquent 
passages  about  the  horrors  of  child-slavery  in 
factories  which  anticipate  the  factory  reports  of  a 
generation  later,  and  which  were  so  much  in 
advance  of  their  time  that  they  still  hold  good 
in  reference  to  certain  of  the  States  of  America. 
Godwin  saw  the  whole  thing  very  clearly  :  the 
pale,  emaciated  child  given  the  free  man's  right 
of  selling  his  labour  at  his  own  price  in  the  open 
1 08 


"  Another  Century,  and  then  ..." 

market  and,  as  Godwin  put  it,  able  to  earn  salt 
to  his  bread  at  four,  but  unable  to  earn  bread  to 
his  salt  at  forty.  The  placid  Bage's  novels  were 
admired  by  Walter  Scott.  The  most  original  is 
Hermsprong,  or  Man  as  he  is  not,  the  hero  of 
which — who  enters  civilized  society  after  being 
brought  up  among  the  Red  Indians,  and  quails 
at  the  change — criticizes  institutions  with  some- 
thing of  the  tone  of  the  versatile  Mr.  Smilash  in 
An  Unsocial  Socialist. 

Shelley's  Zastrozzi  and  St.  Irvyne  are  only 
interesting,  if  interesting  at  all,  because  they  were 
written  by  their  author.  Miss  Gregory  ploughs 
through  them,  and  also  through  the  novels  of 
Charlotte  Smith,  Mrs.  Inchbald,  and  Mrs.  Opie. 
She  has  a  very  interesting  chapter  on  Mary 
Wollstonecraft  and  the  early  Women's  Rights 
authors.  I  find  most  alluring  the  bare  mention 
made  of  a  certain  Ann  Plumptre,  a  novelist  of 
whom  I  had  never  previously  heard,  who  admired 
Napoleon  enthusiastically.  In  1810,  according 
to  Crabb  Robinson, 

"  she  declared  she  would  welcome  him  if  he 
invaded  England  because  he  would  do  away 
with  aristocracy  and  give  the  country  a  better 
government." 

Finally  Miss  Gregory  has  given  space  to  the  anti- 
revolutionary  novelists,  especially  George  Walker 
and  Charles  Lucas,  of  The  Infernal  Quixote. 

109 


Books  in  General 

Ridicule  of  visionaries  and  demagogues  through 
the  medium  of  novels  was  a  recognized  sport 
then  as  now  ;  and  Lucas  instituted  an  elaborate 
comparison  between  political  and  religious  re- 
vivalists. A  good  bibliography  rounds  off  a  very 
laudable  compilation  which  should  interest  all 
persons  of  subversive  views  and  direct  the 
reading  of  the  curious  into  some  very  agreeable 
channels. 


Herrick 

MR.  F.  W.  MOORMAN  has  edited  for 
the  Oxford  Press  a  new  edition  of 
Herrick,  which  should  supersede  all 
its  predecessors.  There  is  very  little  editorial 
matter ;  Mr.  Moorman  has  already  written 
a  Life,  and  his  introduction  and  notes  have  a 
purely  textual  reference.  The  text,  which  is 
as  satisfactory  a  one  as  we  are  likely  to  get, 
is  based  upon  a  collation  of  various  divergent 
copies  of  the  first  edition  ;  for  Herrick  appears 
to  have  hung  about  the  printer's  making  altera- 
tions whilst  the  sheets  were  going  through  the 
press.  And  a  full  list  is  given  of  variants  which 
occur  in  other  printed  copies  of  some  of  the 
poems  and  in  MSS.,  of  which  the  editor  records 
several  which  have  not  previously  been  dealt 
with. 
no 


Herrick 

Any  one  who  regards  Herrick  as  an  unsophisti- 
cated warbler  pouring  forth  profuse  strains  of 
unpremeditated  art  may  study  these  variants 
and  correct  himself.  Mr.  Moorman — I  suppose 
he  has  sufficient  reason,  though  he  leaves  one  to 
guess  what  it  is — assumes  that  the  versions  in 
MSS.  and  anthologies,  etc.,  including  those 
published  after  the  Hesperides,  are  all  earlier 
than  the  versions  in  the  Hesperides.  Now  and 
then  one- is  sorry  that  this  should  be  so,  as  when 
the  presumably  earlier 

And  night  will  come  when  men  will  swear 
Time  has  spilt  snow  upon  your  haire, 

is  changed  into 

And  time  will  come  when  you  shall  weare 
Such  frost  and  snow  upon  your  haire. 

But  almost  invariably  the  changes  are  improve- 
ments ;  and  they  are  exceedingly  numerous. 
Sometimes  alterations  in  almost  every  line  of  a 
poem  may  be  studied  ;  sometimes  there  is  a 
whole  series  of  attempts  at  a  line  ;  and  if  we  had 
more  of  Herrick' s  original  MSS.  available,  we 
should  no  doubt  find  every  poem  a  mass  of  trial 
trips  and  deletions.  He  blotted,  filed,  and 
pumice-stoned  as  much  as  any  English  poet,  and 
he  had  the  most  delicate  and  deliberate  sense 
of  all  the  complex  mechanism  of  verse.  This 
rubicund  Royalist  rector  was  above  all  else  a 
craftsman  and  a  connoisseur. 

ill 


Books  in  General 

What  distinguishes  his  best — they  are  so  well 
known  that  I  need  not  quote  them — poems  from 
his  second  best  is  usually  that  the  former  have 
some  especially  taking  touch  of  tenderness.  It 
is  never  very  deep  ;  even  in  an  epitaph  he  is  more 
concerned  with  turning  it  well  than  with  the, 
often  apocryphal,  death  of  the  person  com- 
memorated. His  adorations  and  griefs  are  as 
light  as  rose-leaves,  but  they  are  genuine  in 
their  way,  and  it  is  rather  a  slight  difference  in 
the  quality  of  his  emotion  than  a  relative  supe- 
riority of  craftsmanship  that  distinguishes  his 
most  perfect  lyrics.  His  strongest  characteristic, 
one  that  runs  through  the  whole  body  of  his 
verse,  was  his  intense  sensual  appreciation  of  the 
material  world.  He  was  a  connoisseur  in  life  as 
in  art.  His  admired  record  of  the  "  liquefac- 
tion "  of  Julia's  silks  is  characteristic  of  him. 
"  O  how  that  glittering  taketh  me ! "  he  might 
have  said  of  a  thousand  other  things.  He  looked 
at  colours  and  felt  surfaces  like  a  connoisseur  ; 
he  tasted  substances  like  an  epicure  tasting  wines. 
He  crushes  all  the  distinctive  hues  and  flavours 
out  of  flowers  and  spices,  roses  and  primroses 
and  violets,  tulips,  lilies,  marigolds,  cherry- 
blossoms,  virgins'  skins,  jet,  ivory,  amber,  and 
gums.  There  is  nothing  romantic  about  him, 
and  nothing  dim  ;  all  things  are  equally  vivid 
and  clear,  no  thing  is  mysteriously  vaster  than 
other  things.  The  moon  and  cream  are  both 
white — he  will  compare  his  lady's  cheek  to  either 
indifferently  or  to  both  in  a  sentence ;  he  relishes 

112 


Herrick 

the  loveliness  of  each  and  he  drinks  each,  with 
exquisite  pleasure,  out  of  the  same  sized  liqueur 
glass.  Few  other  writers  give  one  so  keen  a 
contact  with  the  beauties  of  the  physical  world. 
But  it  is  usually  their  sensuous  appeal  that  is 
registered,  sometimes  their  sentimental  appeal, 
but  never  their  mystic  appeal.  Herrick  was  a 
thoroughgoing  pagan. 

His  capacity  for  conveying  vivid  impressions 
of  the  physical  was  not  invariably  employed 
upon  such  agreeable  objects  as  daffodils  and 
maidens.  His  sheer  virtuosity  made  him  com- 
pose those  offensive  epigrams  which  some  bashful 
editors  exclude  from  their  collections.  It  is  not 
to  be  supposed  that  he  really  wished  to  vent  his 
spleen  against  Luggs,  Gryll,  Clasco,  Scobble, 
Bunce,  and  his  other,  presumably  pseudonymous, 
butts  ;  though  if  his  efforts  in  this  direction  got 
about  in  his  Devonshire  village  and  people  took 
them  to  apply  to  themselves  it  is  no  wonder  that 
the  natives  behaved  towards  him,  as  he  com- 
plained, like  surly  savages.  "  Upon  Batt  "  is 
one  of  the  mildest  of  them  : 

Batt  he  gets  children,  not  for  love  to  reare  ''em, 
But  out  of  hope  his  wife  might  die  to  beare  'em. 

A  more  characteristic,  but  still  a  mild  one,  is 
"  Upon  Lungs  "  : 

Lungs  (as  some  say)  ne'er  sits  him  down  to  eate 
But  that  his  breath  do's  Fly-blow  all  the  meate. 
H  113 


Books  in  General 

He  tells  —  I  refrain  from  the  grossest  ones  —  of 
another  gentleman  whose  eyes  were  so  sticky  in 
the  morning  that  his  wife  had  to  lick  them  open  ; 
of  another  whose  raw  eyes  would  supply  an 
angler  with  a  day's  bait  ;  and  of  another  (very 
parsimonious)  who  preserved  his  nails,  warts,  and 
corns  in  boxes  to  make  jelly  for  his  broth.  It  is 
not  astonishing  that  when  the  "  sprightly  Spar- 
tanesse  "  appeared  to  him  in  dream  she  remarked: 


^  Remove, 
Herrick  thou  art  too  coorse  for  love. 

But  as  one  goes  on  through  these  things  one  is 
too  amused  to  be  disgusted  ;  one  wonders  what 
on  earth  the  man  is  going  to  think  of  next. 
And  that  was  the  idea.  He  had  compressed  all 
the  fragrance  of  the  spring  into  short  lyrics  — 
how  much  concentrated  beastliness  could  he  get 
into  a  couplet  ?  He  had  rivalled  Horace  and 
Anacreon  in  one  line  ;  could  he  rival  Martial  in 
another  ?  You  may  picture  him  making  these 
things  —  sitting  at  a  table  in  the  sun  outside  the 
rectory,  quaffing,  as  was  his  wont,  a  social 
tankard  with  his  favourite  pig,  and  working  and 
working  at  these  singular  concoctions  until  there 
came  the  thrill  of  the  artist  who  knows  he  has 
produced  a  perfect  cameo. 

His  outlook  and  methods  being  such,  it  is  not 
surprising  that  when  he  gave  up  his  "  unbaptized 
Rhimes  "  and  took  to  "  Noble  Numbers  "  he  was 
114 


Herrick 

comparatively  unsuccessful.  Quaintness  and 
neatness  do  not  go  far  in  religious  verse,  and 
the  congenital  materialism  of  Herrick's  imagery 
sometimes  produced  the  most  grotesque  effects. 

God  is  all  fore-part,  for  we  never  see 
Any  'part  backward,  in  the  Deitie. 

An  epigram  which  might  have  had  some  point  if 
applied  to  a  man  is  merely  vapid  when  applied 
to  the  Deity.  And  the  vapid  becomes  comic  in 

I  crawle,  I  creep  ;  my  Christ  I  come 
To  thee,  for  curing  Balsamum, 

and 

Lord,  I  confesse,  that  thou  alone  art  able 
To  purifie  this  my  Augean  stable  ; 
Be  the  Seas  water,  and  the  Land  all  Sope, 
Tet  if  thy  Bloud  not  wash  me,  there's  no  hope. 

Herrick  was  not  an  exalted  religious  poet. 
But  it  doesn't  much  matter  what  he  was  not ; 
what  he  was  is  one  of  the  greatest  small  masters 
in  the  history  of  verse. 


Books  in  General 


The  Muse  in  Liquor 

IN  former  times  men  wrote  about  drinking 
without  the  slightest  self-consciousness. 
Our  forefathers,  from  Teos  to  Chertsey, 
from  Greenland's  icy  mountains  to  India's  coral 
strand,  sang  the  praises  of  what  nobody  in  those 
days  dreamt  of  calling  alcohol,  as  they  sang  the 
praises  of  the  other  amenities  of  life.  To  Homer 
"  bright  wine  "  was  as  indispensable  a  commodity 
as  bread  :  no  home  could  be  complete  without  it. 
If  Anacreon  and  Horace  were  rather  more 
sophisticated  about  it  and  tasted  their  liquor 
with  a  deliberate  and  spun-out  sensuality,  they 
still  had  no  idea  that  there  was  anything  morally 
questionable  about  drink.  So  onwards  to 
mediaeval  times.  When  the  Anglo-Saxon  leech 
laid  it  down  that  if  a  man  has  fainted  from 
hunger  one  should 

"  pull  his  locks  from  him,  and  wring  his  ears,  and 
twitch  his  whiskers  ;  when  he  is  better  give  him 
some  bread  broken  in  wine," 

there  was  no  rival  school  of  leeches  to  jump  up  and 
protest  that  to  inject  alcoholic  poisons  into  a 
debilitated  frame  was  about  the  worst  thing 
you  could  do.  Drinking  in  the  Middle  Ages  was 
unchallengeably  respectable.  "  The  introduc- 
tion of  wine  and  viticulture,"  says  Mr.  A.  L. 
116 


The  Muse  in  Liquor 

Simon  in  his  history  of  the  Wine  Trade  in 
England, 

"  is  coeval  with  the  introduction  of  the  Christian 
religion.  As  the  numbers  of  clergy  increased, 
greater  supplies  of  wine  were  required,  so  vines 
were  planted  at  home,  and  a  considerable  foreign 
wine  trade  came  into  being." 

The  drinking-songs  of  the  Middle  Ages  were 
largely  composed  by  theological  students,  and 
it  was  (at  least  I  am  of  that  party  which  main- 
tains that  it  was)  an  archdeacon  of  the  English 
Church  who  wrote  one  of  the  two  best  lyrics  of 
the  kind  that  this  island  has  produced — that  per- 
fect song  in  which  he  expresses  the  hope  that  he 
shall  meet  his  latter  end  in  a  hostelry  and  that 
some  one  should  hold  a  pottle-pot  before  his 
dying  eyes  : 

Ut  dicant  cum  venerint  angelorum  chori 
"  Deus  sit  propitius  huic  potatori" 

Our  other  great  song  has  also  been  attributed  to 
an  ecclesiastic,  Bishop  Still. 

But  if  a  modern  bishop  wrote  a  song  about 
hot  whisky,  he  would  get  into  hot  water.  Times 
have  changed.  When  a  modern  English  king 
wants  to  do  the  popular  thing,  he  takes  the 
pledge  ;  when  Henry  III  wanted  to,  he  gave  his 
old  wine  to  the  poor — the  gift  was  not  so  noble 

117 


Books  in  General 

as  it  sounds,  for  in  his  day  old  wine  was  bad, 
owing  to  the  lack  of  glass  bottles  and  well-made 
casks.  Bishop  Still,  when  he  wrote  (if  he  wrote) 
about  the  ale-swallowing  capacity  of  himself 
and  Tib,  his  wife,  was  on  the  safe  side,  for  his 
sovereign  lady,  Queen  Elizabeth,  was  addicted 
herself.  Her  Ministers  had  a  job  keeping  her 
supplied  with  beer.  When  she  was  on  one  of 
her  royal  progresses,  the  Earl  of  Leicester  wrote 
to  Lord  Burleigh  : 

"  There  is  not  one  drop  of  good  drink  for  her. 
We  were  fain  to  send  to  London  and  Kenilworth 
and  divers  other  places  where  ale  was  ;  her  own 
bere  was  so  strong  as  there  was  no  man  able  to 
drink  it." 

But  since  that  time  a  question  of  principle  has 
arisen,  and  the  changed  attitude  of  society 
towards  drink  has  been  accompanied  by  a  corre- 
sponding change  in  the  tone  of  those  who  write 
in  praise  of  drink.  They  used  to  be  natural  and 
expository ;  they  are  now  self-conscious  and  on 
the  defensive. 

I  note  the  transition  in  a  volume  (1862)  called 
How  to  Mix  Drinks,  or  The  Bon-Vivanfs  Com- 
panion, by  Jerry  Thomas,  formerly  principal 
bar-tender  at  the  Metropolitan  Hotel,  New  York, 
and  the  Planter's  House,  St.  Louis.  It  is  an 
ingenious  book  and  a  suitable  companion  to  its 
shelf-neighbour,  The  Maltworm's  Vade-mecum,  a 
118 


The  Muse  in  Liquor 

guide  to  the  public-houses  of  early  Georgian 
London.  But  if  Mr.  Thomas  had  been  a  con- 
temporary of  his  brother  connoisseur,  it  would 
never  have  occurred  to  him  to  write  a  preface 
apologizing  for  the  mere  compilation  of  such  a 
book  : 

"  Whether  it  is  judicious  that  mankind  should 
continue  to  indulge  in  such  things,  or  whether  it 
would  be  wiser  to  abstain  from  all  enjoyments  of 
that  character,  it  is  not  our  province  to  decide. 
We  leave  that  question  to  the  moral  philosopher. 
We  simply  contend  that  a  relish  for  '  social 
drinks  '  is  universal ;  that  those  drinks  exist  in 
greater  variety  in  the  United  States  than  in  any 
other  country  in  the  world,  and  that  he,  therefore, 
who  proposes  to  impart  to  those  drinks  not  only 
the  most  palatable  but  the  most  wholesome 
characteristics  of  which  they  may  be  made 
susceptible,  is  a  genuine  public  benefactor." 

You  see  the  uneasiness  coming  in  ;  the  devotee 
is  conscious  of  a  disapproving  eye.  And  what 
was  perceptible  in  1862  is  much  more  marked 
to-day,  when  a  considerable  percentage  of  the 
population  looks  askance  at  a  man  who  has  been 
seen  coming  out  of  a  bar,  and  when  most  of  our 
priests  and  half  our  politicians  denounce  fer- 
mented drinks  as  an  invention  of  the  Devil. 
The  results  of  this  are  seen  in  the  twentieth- 
century  Bacchanal's  writings.  He  is  on  the 
defensive.  He  cannot  write  a  mere  song  in 

119 


Books  in  General 

praise  of  drink  :  his  Muse  is  largely,  even  mainly, 
concerned  with  dispraise  of  the  opponents  of 
drink.  Mr.  Belloc  and  Mr.  Chesterton,  belaud- 
ing drinks  as  against  beverages,  strike  an  attitude 
which  Anacreon  simply  would  not  have  under- 
stood. They  cannot  lie  and  lap  their  liquor  in 
dreamy  content.  Whenever  they  take  up  a  pot 
of  beer  they  have  to  march  out  and  drink  it 
defiantly  in  the  middle  of  the  Strand.  It  is 
almost  as  if  they  knew  they  were  the  champions 
of  a  lost,  though  noble,  cause  ;  and  felt  that  at 
any  moment  they  might  be  called  upon  to  Die 
in  the  Last  Tankard. 

This  tendency  is  strongly  marked  in  Mr. 
Chesterton's  volume  Wine,  Water,  and,  Song. 
Mr.  Chesterton  spends  half  his  time  in  abusing 
abstemious  American  and  English  millionaires, 
tea,  cocoa,  mineral  waters,  and  grocers — who, 
lacking  the  genial  proclivities  of  publicans,  have 
never  been  known 

To  crack  a  bottle  offish  sauce 
Or  stand  a  man  a  cheese. 

But  the  novelty  of  tone  makes  the  songs  all  the 
better  :  for  the  old  material  of  drinking-songs  was 
getting  threadbare.  To  my  thinking,  these  songs 
— most  of  them  appeared  in  The  Flying  Inn,  and 
it  was  a  pity  that  they  were  omitted  from  the 
volume  of  collected  Poems  recently  issued — are 
amongst  the  finest  bibulous  songs  ever  written, 
120 


The  Muse  in  Liquor 

and  some  of  Mr.  Chesterton's  very  best  work. 
You  can  read  them  aloud  to  other  people  and 
very  seldom  come  across  a  stilted  or  obscure 
phrase  which  makes  you  feel  sheepish  to  say  it. 
But,  more  than  that,  Wine  and.  Water,  The  Good 
Rich  Man,  The  Song  against  Songs,  and  the  two 
poems  on  the  English  Road  are  the  sort  of 
infectiously  musical  things  that  one  learns  by 
heart  without  knowing  one  has  done  it. 

Old  Noah  he  had  an  ostrich  farm  and,  fowls  on  the 

largest  scale, 
He  ate  his  eggs  with  a  ladle  in  an  egg-cup  big  as  a 

-pail, 
And,  the  soup  he  took  was  Elephant  Soup,  and  the 

jish  he  took  was  whale, 
But  they  all  were  small  to  the  cellar  he  took  when  he 

set  out  to  sail, 
And,  Noah  he  often  said,  to  his  wife  when  he  sat 

down  to  dine, 
"  /  dorft  care  where  the  water  goes  if  it  doesn't  get 

into  the  wine" 

Lives  there  a  man  with  soul  so  dead  that  when  he 
comes  across  this  or  The  Road  to  Roundabout 
(which  is  about  the  best  of  the  lot)  he  does  not 
automatically  improvise  a  tune  to  it  and  start, 
according  to  his  ability,  singing  it  ? 


121 


Books  in  General 


Misspent 

A~TY  one  who  is  interested  in  what 
nobody  has  yet  asked  us  to  call  the 
British  language  must  have  felt  appre- 
hensive if  he  read  the  correspondence  recently 
printed  in  the  Times  on  the  subject  of  a  syno- 
nym for  the  word  "  Colonial."  It  appears  that 
this  word  is  "  strongly  objected  to  "  in  the — er 
— Dominions,  and  especially  in  Canada.  The 
Central  Committee  of  the  Overseas  Club  there- 
fore started  a  Missing  Word  Competition.  It 
offered  a  prize  of  £5  for  the  best  synonym  and 
"  members  have  been  most  prolific  in  their  ideas." 
The  examples  given  of  their  fecundity  are, 
however,  so  malformed  as  to  lead  to  the  hope 
that  in  future  they  will  practise  an  intellectual 
Malthusianism.  The  Chairman  of  the  Club  says 
that  amongst  the  terms  suggested  are  Britainer, 
Britonial,  Imperialist,  Dominion,  Britannian, 
Britoner,  Greater  Briton,  Anglian  Pan-Briton, 
and  such  repulsive  composts  as  Empirean, 
Transmarine  (why  not  Ultramarine  ?),  Away- 
Born,  Out-Briton,  Co-Briton,  Albionian,  Mac- 
Briton,  and  Britson.  What  those  which  he  does 
not  publish  were  like  one  can  only  surmise ; 
but  no  doubt  Ap-Briton,  O'Briton,  Britidian, 
Britkinson,  Dominisher,  Fraternanglian,  Nonsun- 
setton,  and  Heptathalassian  were  among  them. 
And  so,  possibly,  was  Oversear 

122 


Misspent 

It  needs  must  be  that  new  words  should  come  ; 
and  one  should  not  cry  woe  against  those  through 
whom  they  come.  We  are  constantly  inventing 
or  importing  words  to  convey  ideas  or  shades  of 
feeling  for  which  we  previously  had  no  exact 
means  of  expression.  We  also  necessarily 
acquire  new  words  for  new  objects,  such  as 
chemicals  and  machines.  When  men  made  the 
telephone  they  had  to  call  it  something  ;  and  the 
same  thing  applied  to  the  omnibus.  We  can 
frequently  trace  new  words  to  their  inventors. 
But  we  may  safely  say  that  successful  new  words 
are  seldom  "  made  up "  cold-bloodedly  merely 
for  the  sake  of  the  thing.  An  author  hits  upon  a 
word  half-accidentally,  developing  it  usually 
from  some  word  already  familiar  ;  or  a  philo- 
sopher or  scientist  constructs  one  out  of  frag- 
ments of  Greek,  or  Latin,  or  Greek  and  Latin 
mixed,  because  he  has  a  new  object  to  describe. 
The  process  is  going  on  continually.  The  rivals 
"  airman  "  and  "  aviator "  (somebody  once 
asked  if  you  could  call  a  miner  a  "  talpiator  ") 
are  at  present  *  fighting  it  out  in  the  Press  and 
on  men's  tongues  ;  and  if  some  central  authority 
is  in  the  future  established  over  the  heads  of  the 
sovereign  Powers,  it  is  likely  that  the  word 
"  supernational,"  now  being  bruited  about,  may 
come  into  use  to  describe  it.  We  may  get  in 
time,  too,  an  inclusive  word  which  will  imply 
"  citizen  of  the  British  Empire,"  covering  both 
Britons  (or,  if  you  prefer  it,  Britirish)  and 

*  Airman  happily  seems  (July  1918)  to  have  won. — S.  E. 

123 


Books  in  General 

Colonials.     But  I  doubt  whether  such  a  word  will 
result  from  a  public  competition. 

When  it  comes  it  will  come  because  some  one 
person  starts  using  it  and  others  take  to  it.  And 
when  it  is  a  case  of  inventing  a  synonym,  a  new 
word  as  a  substitute  for  an  old  one  in  general  use, 
I  think  it  most  unlikely  that  a  group  of  persons 
such  as  the  Overseas  Club  could  persuade  the 
race  to  abandon  a  universally  used  word  like 
"  Colonial "  for  some  £5  prize  word  merely 
because  hypersensitive  people  think  that  the 
word  used  to  have  a  faintly  derogatory  flavour. 
"  Colonial "  is  very  strongly  entrenched.  One 
can  just  understand  how  the  Americans  have 
come  to  use  the  abominable  word  "  Britisher  " 
instead  of  the  ancient  "  Briton  "  ;  for  it  falls 
more  trippingly  off  the  tongue.  But  "Colonial" 
is  a  most  liquid,  easy,  and  euphonious  word.  If 
it  is  ever  superseded,  it  will  be  so  because  some 
other  word  comes  in  with  the  larger  connotation 
to  which  I  have  referred,  a  word  which  is  bound 
to  come  into  being  when  we  cease  to  think  of  the 
Empire  as  composed  of  the  United  Kingdom  on 
the  one  hand  and  the  Colonies  on  the  other,  but 
think  of  it  as  a  federation  of  equal  and  distinct 
units. 

It  is  a  pity  that  people  take  so  seriously  the 
fact  that  when  the  words  "  Colonies "  and 
"  Colonial  "  were  first  used  by  us  they  had  certain 
associations.  For  it  is  evident  that  to  the  vast 
124. 


Misspent 

majority  of  our  countrymen  they  are  entirely 
divested  of  them.  Whatever  one's  habits,  one 
automatically  thinks  when  the  word  "  Colonial  " 
is  mentioned,  not  of  a  humble  emigrant  who  wants 
shepherding,  but  of  a  person  who  is  the  very 
quintessence  of  independence.  Any  one  who  has 
even  the  most  superficial  acquaintance  with  the 
language  knows  that  words  can  lose  their  old 
associations  utterly.  If,  for  example,  I  were 
arrested  and  charged  for  alleging,  in  a  public 
speech,  one  of  our  Royal  Princes  to  be  "  a  silly 
knave,"  I  should  not  find  the  magistrate  very 
sympathetic  if  I  said  I  was  using  the  words  in  a 
Shakespearean  (which  in  this  case  would  be 
equivalent  to  a  Pickwickian)  sense,  and  that  I 
merely  meant  to  call  him  "  a  simple  boy." 
Similarly,  where  an  object  changes  its  form  its 
name  changes  its  connotation.  If  one  could 
talk  of  a  bottle  to  a  mediaeval  ancestor,  he  would 
think  of  something  made  of  leather  ;  to-day  a 
bottle  is  essentially  something  made  of  glass.  If 
we  always  wanted  a  new  term  directly  a  new 
association  was  created,  there  would  be  no  end  to 
the  process ;  we  should  have  to  have  a  Ministry  of 
Constructive  Philology  always  at  work.  After  all, 
Charleston  was  named  after  an  English  king  when 
the  North  American  plantations  were  very  subordi- 
nate indeed ;  and  Melbourne  after  a  member  of  the 
British  House  of  Lords,  an  institution  of  which  few 
modern  Australians  approve.  So,  on  the  whole, 
saving  the  Overseas  Club's  reverence,  we  may  as 
well,  for  the  time  being,  stick  to  "  Colonial." 

125 


Books  in  General 


Shakespeare's  Women  and 
Mr.  George  Moore 

HANDLING  the  Porcupine  of  Avon  is 
always  ticklish  work.  When  Mr.  George 
Moore,  after  containing  himself  for 
years,  at  last  wrote  to  explain  that  it  was  he, 
and  not  Mr.  Shaw  or  Mr.  Franz  Heinrichs,  who 
discovered  the  fact  that  Shakespeare's  female 
characters  were  weak  because  they  were  written 
for  boy-actors,  it  was  only  natural  that  another 
correspondent  should  show  that  Mr.  Moore  had 
been  forestalled  by  an  eighteenth-century 
Frenchman.  Mr.  Moore's  remark  about  the 
boy-actors  was,  however,  merely  a  passing 
observation  in  a  lecture  in  French  (published  in 
the  Revue  Bleue  in  1910)  which  is  an  important 
document  in  the  movement  against  what  Mr. 
Shaw  calls  Bardolatry. 

"  He  is  inconceivably  wise  ;  the  others  con- 
ceivably." Thus  Emerson  ;  and  a  few  genera- 
tions of  such  sweeping  remarks  were  bound  to 
be  followed  by  a  reaction.  For  a  hundred  years 
we  have  swallowed  Shakespeare  steadily  and 
swallowed  him  whole  ;  a  man  has  even  written  a 
book  on  The  Messiahship  of  Shakespeare.  And 
of  all  his  powers,  that  of  creating  an  infinite 
variety  of  female  character  has  been  perhaps 
126 


Shakespeare's  Women  and  Mr.  G.  Moore 

more  enthusiastically  praised  than  any  other. 
The  professors  have  given  us  treatises  on  Shake- 
speare's Feminine  Types  ;  and  the  less  erudite 
public  has  been  deluged  with  Posies  from 
Shakespeare's  Garden  of  Girls.  "  O  Nature ! 
O  Shakespeare !  which  of  ye  drew  from  the 
other  ?  "  That  is  typical.  Dr.  Lewes,  one  of 
the  ablest  German  writers  on  the  subject,  kneels 
and  adores,  and  asks  women  to  do  the  same. 
"  This  piece,"  he  says  of  Henry  VIII, 

"  this  piece  and  its  female  characters  should 
indeed  inspire  women  with  profound  gratitude 
towards  a  poet  who  represents  a  queen  and  a 
heroine  who  is  above  all  things  an  excellent 
woman,  displaying  in  the  midst  of  frightful 
trials  all  the  best  womanly  qualities,  thus  proving 
that  a  noble,  pure  feminine  heart  is  the  home 
of  the  noblest  virtue,  the  highest  truth  and 
purity.  Seldom  has  more  flattering  homage  been 
paid  to  the  sex  than  by  Shakespeare  in  his  presen- 
tation of  Catherine  of  Aragon." 


And  hear  Mrs.  Jamieson,  author  of  the  best- 
known  English  book  on  these  women.  Dare 
any  one  apply  the  epithet  "  clever  "  to  Portia, 
"  this  heavenly  compound  of  talent,  feeling, 
wisdom,  beauty,  and  gentleness  "  ?  As  for  Lady 
Macbeth,  with  her  "  Gothic  grandeur,  rich 
chiaroscuro,  and  deep-toned  colours,"  even  she 
is  not  to  be  insulted  by  comparison  with  other 

127 


Books  in  General 

villainesses.  Sophocles'  Clytemnestra  had  been 
mentioned,  but 

"  would  any  one  compare  this  shameless  adul- 
teress, cruel  murderess  and  unnatural  mother 
with  Lady  Macbeth  ?  Lady  Macbeth  herself 
would  certainly  shrink  from  the  approximation" 

One  has  sometimes  felt  that  her  ladyship  was 
probably  president  of  the  local  branches  of  the 
G.F.S.  and  the  Soldiers'  and  Sailors'  Families 
Association. 

There  was  nothing  of  this  sort  about  Mr. 
George  Moore's  lecture.  It  opened  with  a 
strong  protest  against  the  "  vast  clamour  "  of 
Shakespeare's  worshippers  : 

"  One  might  take  them  for  a  gathering  of 
negro  Methodists  in  a  chapel,  each  one  straining 
his  lungs  to  out-bellow  his  neighbour,  in  order 
to  attract  the  Almighty's  attention.  Is  it  that 
the  critics  think  that  Shakespeare  is  listening  to 
them  ?  At  any  rate,  the  madness  increases 
daily,  and,  if  the  cult  of  Jahveh  should  happen  to 
decay  in  England,  I  should  not  be  surprised  were 
they  to  promote  Shakespeare  to  the  vacant 
throne  in  the  heavens." 

After  this  engaging  beginning  he  went  on  to 
the  general  contention  that  neither  Shakespeare 
nor  any  of  his  contemporaries  drew  or  painted  a 
128 


Shakespeare's  Women  and  Mr.  G.  Moore 

real  woman.  The  Renaissance  was  interested  in 
women  only  as  queens  or  odalisques,  and  Shake- 
speare at  most  made  a  few  delicious  silhouettes 
of  women.  His  men  were  another  matter. 
"  Hamlet  is  the  secret  thought  of  all  men  "  ; 
and,  though  it  hurts  Mr.  Moore  to  agree  with 
Tolstoi,  he  reaffirmed  Tolstoi's  statement  that 
"  FalstafT  is  the  most  universal  and  original 
thing  in  Shakespeare."  "  Hamlet  is  the  hiero- 
glyphic and  symbol  of  the  intellect ;  FalstafT  is 
the  symbol  and  arabesque  of  the  flesh."  But 
Shakespeare,  like  Balzac,  was  chiefly  concerned 
with  "  the  eternal  masculine." 

But  suppose  it  be  admitted  that  Shakespeare 
has  no  female  Hamlet  and  no  female  FalstafT ; 
is  it  not  arguable  that  then  the  case  for  the 
superiority  of  Shakespeare's  males  over  his 
females  is  very  much  less  strong  ?  It  would  be 
absurd  to  attempt  to  dogmatize  on  the  subject ; 
but  personally  I  doubt  whether  any  one  who 
cannot  get  inside  the  minds  of  most  (though  many 
would  exempt  Heine's  "  ancient  Parisienne " 
Cleopatra,  and  one  or  two  more)  of  Shakespeare's 
women  will  get  inside  the  minds  of  most  of  his 
men  either.  When  Professor  Dowden  said  that 
he  had  "  edited  a  whole  play  for  love  of  Imogen  " 
the  remark  (if  he  heard  it)  may  have  sounded 
strange  to  Mr.  Moore  ;  but  would  he  understand, 
either,  any  one  editing  a  whole  play  for  love  of 
Antonio,  Bassanio,  Benedict,  the  Duke  of  Twelfth 
Night,  King  Lear,  Othello,  Mark  Antony,  or 

I  129 


Books  in  General 

Henry  V  ?  It  is  possible  to  hold  the  view  that 
Shakespeare  "  put  himself  "  into  a  few  characters 
and  observed  the  others  "  from  the  outside," 
making  them  most  interesting  when  they  are 
most  markedly  what  are  called  "  character 
parts."  Personally,  though  I  should  certainly 
know  Hamlet  or  Falstaff  if  I  met  them  in  swallow- 
tails, I  don't  think  there  are  many  other  of 
Shakespeare's  characters  whom  I  should  recognize 
if  I  encountered  them  clothed  in  other  than  their 
traditional  garments.  But  I  do  not  think  it  is 
easy  to  sustain  the  argument  that,  as  a  whole, 
his  women  are  less  carefully  and  sympathetically 
drawn  than  his  men — Lady  Macbeth  than 
Macbeth,  Juliet  than  Romeo,  Cleopatra  than 
Anthony,  Beatrice  than  Benedict,  Rosalind  than 
Orlando — or,  still  more,  that  he  was  not  interested 
in  women  and  regarded  them  in  a  casual  lazy 
way  as  decorations.  Shakespeare's  politics  were 
Heaven  knows  what ;  and  he  may  not  necessarily 
have  drawn  Portia  as  an  argument  for  the  ad- 
mission of  women  to  the  Inns  of  Court.  But 
one  would  have  imagined  that  if  ever  there  were 
a  writer  who  treated  women  and  men  on  a  footing 
of  complete  equality,  and  even  perhaps  elevated 
women's  moral  superiority  to  an  indefensible  pitch, 
it  was  he.  If  his  female  characters  are  not  living 
human  beings  it  is  certainly  not  because  he  despised 
them.  He  gave  them  plenty  of  virtue,  wit,  courage, 
and  will,  and  an  ample  share  of  the  stage ;  it  is,  with 
all  due  respect  to  Mr.  Moore,  grotesque  to  suggest 
that  he  thought  of  them  merely  as  properties. 
130 


Moving  a  Library 

The  recent  correspondence  sent  me  back  to 
Mr.  Moore's  paper,  and  I  read  it  with  admiration 
for  the  fruits  of  what  he  called  a  month's  rather 
exhausting  liaison  with  the  French  language. 
But  something  about  it — perhaps  it  was  the 
catalogue  of  heroines,  each  with  an  appropriate 
criticism — seemed  familiar.  I  have  tracked  it ; 
here  also  Mr.  Moore  has  been  anticipated.  It 
was  the  late  Max  O'Rell — it  is  almost  like  being 
anticipated  by  Charley's  Aunt — who  remarked 
that 

"  The  heroines  of  Shakespeare  are  for  the  most 
part  slaves  or  fools.  Juliet  is  a  spoilt  child, 
Desdemona  a  sort  of  submissive  odalisque, 
Beatrice  a  chatterbox,  and  Ophelia  a  goose." 

It  is  very  difficult  indeed  to  say  anything  new 
about  Shakespeare. 


Moving  a  Library 

I  DO  not  remember  that  any  of  our  medita- 
tive essayists  has  written  on  the  subject  of 
Moving  One's  Books.      If    such   an   essay 
exists  I  should  be  glad  to  go  to  it  for  sympathy 
and  consolation.     For  I  have  just  moved  from 
one  room  to  another,  in  which  I  devoutly  hope 
that  I  shall  end  my  days,  though  (as  Mr.  Asquith 
would  put  it  in  his  rounded  way)  "  at  a  later, 

131 


Books  in  General 

rather  than  at  an  earlier,  date."  Night  after 
night  I  have  spent  carting  down  two  flights  of 
stairs  more  books  than  I  ever  thought  I  possessed. 
Journey  after  journey,  as  monotonously  regular 
as  the  progresses  of  a  train  round  the  Inner 
Circle  :  upstairs  empty-handed,  and  downstairs 
creeping  with  a  decrepit  crouch,  a  tall,  crazy, 
dangerously  bulging  column  of  books  wedged 
between  my  two  hands  and  the  indomitable 
point  of  my  chin.  The  job  simply  has  to  be 
done  ;  once  it  is  started  there  is  no  escape  from 
it ;  but  at  times  during  the  process  one  hates 
books  as  the  slaves  who  built  the  Pyramids  must 
have  hated  public  monuments.  A  strong  and 
bitter  book-sickness  floods  one's  soul.  How 
ignominious  to  be  strapped  to  this  ponderous 
mass  of  paper,  print,  and  dead  men's  sentiments  ! 
Would  it  not  be  better,  finer,  braver,  to  leave  the 
rubbish  where  it  lies  and  walk  out  into  the  world 
a  free,  untrammelled,  illiterate  Superman  ? 
Civilization  !  Pah !  But  that  mood  is,  I  am 
happy  to  say,  with  me  ephemeral.  It  is  generated 
by  the  necessity  for  tedious  physical  exertion 
and  dies  with  the  need.  Nevertheless  the  actual 
transport  is  about  the  briefest  and  least  harassing 
of  the  operations  called  for.  Dusting  (or  "  buffet- 
ing the  books,"  as  Dr.  Johnson  called  it)  is  a 
matter  of  choice.  One  can  easily  say  to  oneself, 
"  These  books  were  banged  six  months  ago  " 
(knowing  full  well  that  it  was  really  twelve 
months  ago),  and  thus  decide  to  postpone  the 
ceremony  until  everything  else  has  been  settled. 
132 


Moving  a  Library 

But  the  complications  of  getting  one's  library 
straight  are  still  appalling. 

Of  course,  if  your  shelves  are  moved  bodily 
it  is  all  right.  You  can  take  the  books  out,  lay 
them  on  the  floor  in  due  order,  and  restore  them 
to  their  old  places.  But  otherwise,  if  you  have 
any  sense  of  congruity  and  proportion,  you  are 
in  for  a  bad  time.  My  own  case  could  not 
be  worse  than  it  is.  The  room  from  which  I 
have  been  expelled  was  low  and  square  ;  the 
room  into  which  I  have  been  driven  is  high  and 
L-shaped.  None  of  my  old  wall-shelves  will  fit 
my  new  walls  ;  and  I  have  had  to  erect  new  ones, 
more  numerous  than  the  old  and  totally  different 
in  shape  and  arrangement.  It  is  quite  impossible 
to  preserve  the  old  plan  ;  but  the  devisal  of 
another  one  brings  sweat  to  the  brow.  If  one 
happened  to  be  a  person  who  never  desired  to 
refer  to  his  books  the  obvious  thing  to  do  would 
be  to  put  the  large  books  into  the  large  shelves 
and  the  small  ones  into  the  small  shelves  and 
then  go  and  smoke  a  self-satisfied  pipe  against  the 
nearest  post.  But  to  a  man  who  prefers  to  know 
where  every  book  is,  and  who  possesses,  moreover, 
a  sense  of  System  and  wishes  everything  to  be  in 
surroundings  proper  to  its  own  qualities,  this  is 
not  possible.  Even  an  unsystematic  man  must 
choose  to  add  a  classification  by  subject  to  the 
compulsory  classification  by  size  ;  and,  in  my 
case,  there  is  an  added  difficulty  produced  by  a 
strong  hankering  for  some  sort  of  chronological 

133 


Books  in  General 

order.  There  is  nothing  like  that  for  easy 
reference.  If  you  know  that  Beowulf  will  be  at 
the  left-hand  end  of  the  shelf  that  he  fits  and 
Julia  Ward,  the  Sweet  Singer  of  Michigan,  at  the 
right-hand  end,  you  save  yourself  a  good  deal  of 
time.  But  when  your  new  compartments  do 
not  fit  your  old  sections,  when  the  large  books  of 
Stodge  are  so  numerous  as  to  insist  upon  intrud- 
ing into  the  shelves  reserved  for  large  books  of 
Pure  Literature,  and  the  duodecimos  of  Foreign 
Verse  surge  in  a  tidal  wave  over  the  preserves 
of  the  small  books  on  Free  Trade,  Ethics,  and 
Palaeontology,  one  is  reduced  to  the  verge  of 
despair.  That  is  where  I  am  at  this  moment ; 
sitting  in  the  midst  of  a  large  floor  covered 
with  sawdust,  white  distemper,  nails,  tobacco- 
ash,  burnt  matches,  and  the  Greatest  Works  of 
the  World's  Greatest  Masters.  Fortunately,  in 
Ruskin's  words,  "  I  don't  suppose  I  shall  do  it 
again  for  months  and  months  and  months." 


Table-Talk  and  Jest  Books 

SAMUEL  BUTLER'S  Note-Books  have  now 
gone     into     another    (popular)     edition, 
issued    by    Mr.    Fifield.      I    don't    know 
how    large    these    editions   are  :    if,    as    I    fear, 
they   run    to    less    than    fifty   thousand    copies 
apiece,  Samuel  Butler  has  not  yet  got  his  due. 
There  is  no  other  volume  in  the  whole  of  his 

134 


Table-Talk  and  Jest  Books 

collected  works  to  equal  this  selection  from  his 
note-books  :  you  have  here  the  quintessence  of 
his  wisdom,  his  taste,  and  his  superb  impudence. 
The  book  really  belongs  to  the  "  table-talk  "  or 
"  ana  "  class  of  books.  Butler,  that  is  to  say, 
recorded  his  own  table-talk.  His  principle  was, 
he  said,  that  if  you  wanted  to  record  a  thought 
you  had  to  shoot  it  on  the  wing.  If,  therefore, 
he  thought  of  or  said  anything  especially  illu- 
minating or  amusing,  or  heard  any  one  else  say 
anything  of  the  sort,  down  it  went.  And  it 
always  went  down  as  colloquially  and  freshly 
as  if  a  Boswell  had  been  present  recording 
conversation  with  a  faithful  pen.  Butler 
Boswellized  himself.  For  Boswell' s  Life,  as  has 
been  remarked  before,  is  the  greatest  collection 
of  "  ana "  in  the  language.  It  consisted  of 
Johnson's  table-talk  strung  on  a  biographical 
thread. 

Personally  I  find  it  hard  to  draw  the  line  be- 
tween general  table-talk  and  anecdotes  told  of 
certain  persons  :  most  collections  include  both. 
But  such  works,  of  whatever  kind,  consisting  of 
detached  scraps  of  great  men's  wit,  are  an 
agreeable  form  of  reading,  and  an  old-established 
one.  The  Greeks  possessed  volumes  of  excerpts 
from  people's  conversation,  and  some  Latin 
wrote  a  book,  now  unfortunately  lost,  under  the 
piquant  title  of  De  Jocis  Ciceronis.  The  great 
age  of  such  collections  began,  however,  with  the 
Renaissance,  when  Poggio  the  Florentine  collected 


Books  in  General 

his  "  facetiae."  My  own  extracts  from  Poggio 
are  included  in  a  German  collection  of  1603,  all 
written  in  Latin,  which  gives  also  the  "  facetiae  " 
of  other  wits,  notably  of  Nicodemus  Frischlin 
of  Balingen.  This  man  was  a  German  scholar  of 
exceptional  brilliance  who  finally,  on  being  in- 
carcerated for  the  last  of  many  escapades,  broke 
his  neck  trying  to  escape.  We  have  no  such 
University  professors  of  classics  now.  "  Ana  " 
so-called  begin  with  the  Scaligerana,  which  gave 
the  drastic  conversation  of  the  younger  Scaliger 
as  recorded  by  two  of  his  disciples.  The  success 
of  this  led  to  a  rush  in  France.  Every  one  who 
had  known  an  eminent  man  deceased  rushed  out 
with  a  volume  of  table-talk  ;  Tkuana,  Perroniana, 
etc.  The  Sorberiana  "  sive  excerpta  ex  ore 
Samuelis  Sorbiere  "  was  famous  in  its  day,  but  I 
find  it  very  dull.  Much  the  best  collection  is 
Menagiana,  "  Bon  Mots,  Rencontres  Agreables, 
Pensees  Judicieuses,  et  Observations  Curieuses 
de  M.  Menage,"  of  which  the  second  edition  (my 
copy)  is  dated  1694-5.  This  man  was  a  scholar, 
knew  everybody  and  had  a  sharp  tongue  :  he  is 
extremely  good  reading,  though,  nowadays,  very 
little  read.  The  contents  of  both  of  these  books 
are  arranged  (as  is  Butler's)  under  subject- 
headings,  in  alphabetical  order.  The  same  order 
is  observed  in  Selden's  Table-Talk,  the  next  best 
book  of  the  kind  to  Boswell  in  our  tongue.  It 
was  published  after  Selden's  death  by  his  private 
secretary  and  is  full  of  extraordinarily  sensible 
and  witty  things.  And,  unlike  many  wits, 
136 


Table-Talk  and  Jest  Books 

Selden  always  possessed  a  sense  of  responsibility. 
He  remarked  himself  (under  heading  "  Wit," 
as  he  did  not  realize)  that 

"  He  that  lets  fly  all  he  knows  and  thinks  may 
by  chance  be  satyrically  witty.  Honesty  some- 
times keeps  a  man  from  growing  rich,  and  civility 
from  being  witty." 

Few  of  the  wits  whose  sayings  are  collected  are  so 
scrupulous.  Our  other  classical  example  in  the 
kind  is  Coleridge's  Table-Talk,  which  is  full  of  fine 
criticism,  funny  stories,  and  good  epigrams. 

These  collections  shade  off  into  the  ordinary 
jest  book.  After  all,  there  is  no  clear  division 
between  stories  told  by  a  dead  man  and  stories 
collected  and  published  by  a  living  one,  between 
stories  about  one  man  and  stories  about  fifty 
different  men.  When  the  new  learning  was  still 
new,  men  had  a  mania  for  collecting  pointed 
anecdotes  about  the  eminent.  The  fattest  book 
of  the  kind  I  know  is  Casper  Ens's  Epidorpidum, 
published  at  Cologne  in  the  early  seventeenth 
century.  It  is  full  of  the  remarks  of  Alexander 
to  Diogenes  and  Pope  Innocent  to  St.  Vitus  and 
the  repartees  of  King  Pyrrhus  of  Epirus  to  a 
recalcitrant  phalanx.  Right  on  into  the  eigh- 
teenth century  works  with  titles  like  Elite  de 
Bon-Mots,  and  full  of  such  historical  personages, 
were  popular  on  the  Continent.  English  jest 
books  were  perhaps  more  local  and  contemporary 

137 


Books  in  General 

in  their  references.  Our  eighteenth-century  an- 
cestors were  addicted  to  anecdotes  about  Mr. 
Quin  and  Mr.  Foote  and  what  the  Duke  of 
Wharton  said  to  the  Bishop.  In  our  own  time 
the  larger,  if  not  the  smaller,  public  still  shows 
some  demand  for  collections  of  anecdotes  of  this 
sort  :  and  popular  weeklies  of  the  Answers  and 
Tit-Bits  type  usually  seem  to  find  it  desirable  to 
print  columns  of  stories  about  Henry  Irving,  Mr. 
Gladstone,  and  such  people.  But  it  is  a  long  way 
from  Tit-Bits  to  Samuel  Butler  :  which  shows 
where  one  may  land  oneself  if  one  does  not  know 
where  to  draw  a  firm  line  when  shading-off  is 
apparently  gradual.  I  cannot  review  Butler  at 
this  time  of  day ;  but  there  are  very  few  books 
existing  which  contain  more  sense  to  the  square 
inch  than  this.  Though  the  worst  of  his  books 
is  good  reading,  the  Note-Books  is  as  certainly  his 
finest  book  as  BoswelFs  Johnson  is  the  finest  of 
Johnson's. 


Stephen  Phillips 

THE  announcements  of  Stephen  Phillips's 
death  must  have  carried  many  people's 
thoughts  backward.      Me  personally  it 
took  back  to   a  time,  years   ago,  when  I  was  in 
the  first  flush  of  my  youthful  beauty  and  sit- 
ting out  at  a  country  dance.     Coloured  lamps 
burned   between   boughs,   trees   gently   swished 
138 


Stephen  Phillips 

under  a  summer  sky,  the  sound  of  violins  and 
the  glide  of  many  feet  penetrated  softly  from  a 
distance  ;  and  a  partner,  whose  face  was  shadowy 
pale  in  the  faint  light,  sat  clasping  her  knees, 
looking  out  into  the  night,  and  talking  in  a  deep 
ecstatic  voice  of  Marpessa,  Herod,  and  Paolo  and 
Francesca.  It  was  not  merely  that  she  thought 
that  I  was  that  sort  of  person  :  the  same  thing 
was  happening  in  every  county  in  England. 
Phillips  had  the  biggest  boom  that  any  English 
poet  has  had  for  a  generation.  The  extravagance 
of  the  eulogies  seems  very  strange  now.  There 
was  scarcely  a  critic  who  did  not  lose  his  balance. 
I  have  just  been  looking  up  some  of  these  pane- 
gyrics, and  the  pitch  of  them  makes  one  feel  a 
little  sadly  for  a  man  who  outlived  so  great  and 
so  early  a  fame.  The  history  of  literature  was 
ransacked  for  comparisons.  Chapman,  Webster, 
Wordsworth,  Shakespeare  himself  were  brought 
in  :  and  almost  the  most  modest  of  the  assessors 
was  Mr.  William  Archer,  who  described  Phillips 
as  "  the  elder  Dumas  speaking  with  the  voice  of 
Milton."  I  remember  the  Daily  Mail  devoting 
its  magazine  page  to  a  description  of  the  poet, 
in  the  course  of  which  it  explained,  with  charac- 
teristic love  of  figures,  that  here  was  a  man  who 
had  discovered  how  to  make  .£1000  a  year  out 
of  poetry.  But  it  did  not  last.  The  climax 
of  Phillips's  success  came  with  Paolo  and  Fran- 
cesca ;  the  subsequent  plays  were  received  with 
a  diminuendo  of  warmth  ;  and  in  the  last  few 
years  he  was  comparatively  ignored. 

139 


Books  in  General 

The  early  adoration  was  absurd  but  not  in- 
comprehensible. It  was  due,  one  might  say, 
to  the  fact  that  Phillips  was  not  an  original 
writer.  Much  used  to  be  made  of  a  certain 
trick  he  had  of  accenting  occasional  lines  of 
blank  verse  in  a  strange  manner  :  on  the  strength 
of  this  he  was  treated  as  a  revolutionary  inno- 
vator in  English  prosody.  In  reality,  in  spite  of 
this  one  peculiarity,  he  was  anything  but  an 
innovator.  He  had  an  ear  for  the  magniloquent 
progress  of  Milton's  verse  and  the  crooning  music 
of  Tennyson's  ;  he  had  a  great  facility  for  repro- 
ducing them  ;  and  to  those  who  are  susceptible 
only  to  artistic  effects  which  (though  they  are 
unconscious  of  it)  remind  them  of  effects  pre- 
viously experienced,  he  seemed,  therefore,  to  be  a 
consummate  artist.  He  gave  them  precisely 
what  they  had  learnt  to  desire  and  expect  from  a 
poet,  the  familiar  splendours  and  the  familiar 
silences,  the  familiar  agonies  and  the  familiar 
tendernesses,  the  scents,  the  flowers,  the  gems,  the 
old  words  with  their  unmistakable  associations, 
the  brilliant  single  lines,  with  here  and  there  an 
alliteration  and  here  and  there  an  onomatopoeia. 
His  work  was  not,  of  course,  a  mere  compost. 
He  added  something.  His  emotions,  though 
not  deep,  were  genuine  enough  ;  he  had  a  pretty 
fancy  ;  and  he  had  a  considerable  knowledge  of 
how  to  produce  effects  on  the  stage.  Paolo  and 
Francesca  was  certainly  in  every  way  superior 
to  most  of  the  other  attempts  which  have  been 
made  in  our  time  at  stage-plays  in  blank  verse. 
140 


Stephen  Phillips 

It  was  effective  in  the  theatre.  One  remembers 
the  excitement  about  the  skilful  ending  :  the 
murder  behind  the  scenes,  the  bodies  brought  in, 
the  murderer's  revulsion  : 

/  did  not  know  the  dead  could  have  such  hair. 
Hide  them.     They  look  like  children  fast  asleep. 

But  those  who  did  not  shrink  from  comparing  it 
with  Romeo  and  Juliet  omitted  to  notice  the  same 
deficiencies  as  appeared  in  all  his  work.  He  was 
largely  derivative  and  there  was  very  little  hard 
brain  work  behind  his  verse. 

Herod,  Ulysses,  and  Nero  were  all  less  well 
made  :  the  last  two  were  panoramas.  In  all 
three  the  author  depended  on  succulent  or 
flamboyant  "  purple  patches "  for  his  effects, 
descriptions  too  full  of  redundant  metaphor 
and  violent  outbursts  of  picturesque  but  too 
flimsy  rhetoric.  There  was  little  characteriza- 
tion in  them,  the  persons  were  puppets  in  the 
hands  of  the  contriver  of  stage  spectacles  :  they 
were  carried  off  by  brilliant  and  exotic  scenery 
and  costumes,  by  the  romantic  language,  and 
by  the  real  and  skilful,  if  conventional,  melody 
of  the  verse.  All  the  best  qualities  of  Stephen 
Phillips,  the  qualities  that  gave  people  a  thrill 
they  were  unaccustomed  to  in  the  theatre  of  his 
time,  are  quintessentialized  in  Herod's  megalo- 
maniac speeches  and  in  the  oratorical  Mar- 
Hi 


Books  in  General 

lowesque  remark  that  one  of  the  suitors  in 
Ulysses  made  to  Penelope  : 

Thou  hast  caught  splendour  from  the  sailless  sea 
And  mystery  from  the  many  stars  outwatched. 

His  defects  were  observed  by  few  when  he  was  a 
popular  dramatist :  but  those  readers  who  only 
know  him  by  his  later  work  will  misjudge  him 
if  they  think  that  he  never  had  more  power  than 
he  showed  in  that.  His  more  recent  volumes, 
written  in  ill-health,  would  never  have  got  him  a 
reputation.  Here  and  there  the  old  bravura 
appeared,  and  there  is  a  short  lyric  in  the  volume 
of  1913  which  is  certainly  equal  to  anything  in 
the  early  book  of  poems  with  which  he  made  his 
name — and  in  which  he  showed  signs  of  contact 
with  the  "  movement "  of  the  'nineties.  But 
from  most  of  these  later  poems  the  life  had  gone, 
leaving  the  imitative  structure  naked  to  the  eye. 
His  last  volume,  Panama  and  other  Poems,  was 
issued  just  before  he  died  by  his  original  pub- 
lisher, Mr.  John  Lane  ;  and  the  way  in  which 
he  had  succumbed  to  his  influences  was  very 
evident.  Lines  on  the  Canal  such  as 

Chagres  by  Dam  stupendous  of  Gatun 

not  merely  remind  one  of  Milton  but  are  exact 
mechanical  reproductions  of  Milton. 

Incidentally  the  difficulties  of  literary  biog- 
raphy are  illustrated  by  his  obituary  notices. 
142 


Gray  and  Horace  Walpole 

My  Daily  News  gave  his  age  as  forty-nine,  my 
Times  gave  it  as  fifty-one  ;  and  looking  into  the 
Encyclopedia  Britannica  to  see  which  of  these 
estimates  it  would  confirm,  I  found  that  it 
alleged  him  to  be  forty-seven.  The  Encyclopedia 
says  that  he  was  at  Queens'  College,  Cambridge, 
when  he  joined  Mr.  Benson's  company ;  the 
Times  that  he  was  cramming  at  Scoones'.  When 
we  have  this  conflict  of  evidence  about  a  con- 
temporary who  was  known  personally  to  hundreds 
of  people  in  London,  where  are  we  with  Eliza- 
bethans and  Romans  ?  Personally  I  believe  that, 
in  the  matter  of  birth-dates,  nothing  is  really 
reliable — not  even  a  man's  own  statement — 
except  public  registers. 


Gray  and  Horace  Walpole 

IF  a  gentleman  in  Calabria  digs  up  with  a 
spade  a  hitherto  unknown  fragment  of  the 
obscure  Latin  historian  P.  Pomponius 
Fatto  there  is  great  excitement  about  it,  and 
research  congratulates  itself  upon  its  achieve- 
ments. I  can  quite  appreciate  the  feeling. 
All  treasure-trove  is  exciting.  The  smallest 
recovery  from  the  long-buried  past  is  worth 
having ;  it  may,  in  itself,  fill  a  gap  somewhere 
and  it  encourages  the  hope  of  greater  finds. 
But  why  not  make  just  as  much  of  a  palaver 
about  Dr.  Paget  Toynbee's  disinterment  of 

H3 


Books  in  General 

nearly  a  hundred  "  new "  letters  by  the  poet 
Gray  ?  The  new  letters  are  included  in  The 
Correspondence  of  Gray,  Walpole,  West,  and 
Ashton  (Oxford  University  Press,  2  vols.)  ;  and 
they  were  found  in  the  collection  of  Captain 
Sir  F.  E.  Waller,  who  was  recently  killed  in 
action,  and  to  whose  memory  the  volume  is 
dedicated.  Gray,  Horace  Walpole,  Richard 
West,  and  Thomas  Ashton  formed  a  "  Quadruple 
Alliance  "  at  Eton.  West  went  on  to  Oxford, 
the  other  three  to  Cambridge.  We  get  first  of 
all  an  exchange  between  all  four  ;  then  West 
dies,  in  his  twenties  ;  then,  years  afterwards, 
relations  with  Ashton  are  broken  ;  and,  finally, 
there  is  a  long  series  that  passed  between  Walpole 
and  Gray  up  to  the  time  of  the  poet's  death  in 
1771.  In  all  there  are  248  letters  ;  of  these  153 
were  written  by  Gray,  eighty-nine  of  which  have 
never  been  published  before.  Others  have  never 
before  been  printed  in  full,  and  few  have  escaped 
maltreatment  by  previous  editors.  Their  errors 
ranged  from  deliberate  alteration,  truncation, 
and  blending  to  bad  transcription  and  unintelli- 
gent acceptance.  How  easily  the  most  comic 
errors  may  creep  into  a  text  where  each  editor 
neglects  to  use,  or  has  not  access  to,  original 
sources  may  be  shown  by  the  history  of  a  single 
word.  Gray  wrote  a  Latin  poem  about  the  god 
of  Love  in  which  one  line  began  "  Ludentem  fuge." 
This  was  printed  by  Miss  Berry  as  "  Sudentem 
fuge  "  ;  and  this  has  been  "  corrected  "  by  subse- 
quent editors  into  "  Sudantem  fuge  "  ! 
144 


Gray  and  Horace  Walpole 

The  characters  of  the  correspondents  come  out 
very  clearly.  Even  when,  just  after  they  have 
left  school,  they  are  all  writing  rather  affectedly 
(and  with  a  plethora  of  classical  quotation), 
Ashton  is  obviously  the  one  fundamentally 
insincere  member  of  the  group.  He  is  hyper- 
self-conscious,  nastily  artificial.  Later  on  he 
even  refers  in  Joseph  Surface's  very  own  words 
to  his  "  noble  sentiments  "  :  this  was  clearly 
the  man  to  make,  by  his  double-dealing,  the 
temporary  breach  between  Gray  and  Walpole, 
and,  ultimately,  to  compel  Walpole  to  cast  him 
off  by  his  incivility  when  Walpole  was  no  longer 
useful  to  him.  Richard  West,  son  of  an  Irish 
Lord  Chancellor,  has  no  apparent  defect  save 
excessive  seriousness.  There  is  a  touch  of  the 
priggish  mixed  with  the  high-mindedness  and 
generosity  of  this  able  young  invalid  ;  but  one 
can  understand  Gray's  devotion  to  him.  Some 
of  the  poetry  of  his  here  given  (he  appeared 
in  Dodsley's  Miscellany  by  the  way)  is  surpris- 
ingly good.  He  was  the  Arthur  Hallam  of  the 
eighteenth  century. 

The  Walpole  letters  are,  as  always,  unsur- 
passable of  their  kind.  His  undergraduate 
letter  (in  parody  of  Addison's  descriptions  of 
Italy)  relating  a  journey  from  London  to  Cam- 
bridge, is  admirable  ;  but  the  letters  describing 
his  continental  tour  with  Gray  are  better,  and 
those,  still  later,  about  the  beau  monde  of  Paris 
are  perfect.  There  is  a  peculiar  charm  too  about 

K  145 


Books  in  General 

the  correspondence  with  Gray  as  to  the  details 
and  publication  of  his  works,  the  half-solemn, 
half-whimsical  concentration  on  the  tiny  anti- 
quarian details  to  which  each  was  addicted,  the 
eager  little  controversies  and  explorations,  the 
odd  little  jokes.  But  though  Gray,  taking  his 
correspondence  as  a  whole,  considering  both 
volume,  range,  and  formal  excellence,  cannot 
contest  Walpole's  position  as  the  greatest  of 
English  letter-writers,  there  is  a  flavour  about 
his  letters  that  makes  them  peculiarly  delightful. 
Walpole  writes  fully  dressed,  though  with  ex- 
quisite manner ;  Gray  writes  naturally,  and 
without  obvious  reserve,  sometimes  even  gam- 
bolling. There  may  be  people,  familiar  with 
Gray  only  through  his  elevated  and  sombre 
verse,  who  fancy  him  an  exceedingly  self-con- 
tained and  formal  man,  who  feel  (like  the  person 
who  greatly  amused  him  by  addressing  him  as 
"  The  Rev.  T.  Gray")  that  he  simply  must  have 
been  a  divine.  There  were  certainly  contem- 
poraries of  his  who  met  him  and  got  the  impres- 
sion that  he  was  constitutionally  grave,  reticent, 
aloof.  His  letters  show  that  he  was  anything 
but  that  to  his  friends.  The  author  of  the 
Elegy  habitually  "  played  the  goat."  There 
are  a  whole  string  of  skit  letters  here  :  in  one  he 
writes  to  Walpole  as  "  Honner'd  Nurse,"  address- 
ing the  illiterate  screed  "  to  mie  Nuss  att 
London "  ;  in  another  he  wallows  in  Oriental 
imagery  about  the  dew  of  the  morning ;  in 
another  he  applies  to  stagnant  Cambridge  a 
146 


Gray  and  Horace  Walpole 

whole  long  passage  from  Isaiah  describing  de- 
serted Babylon,  the  home  of  dragons  and  haunt 
of  screech-owls.  He  had  a  great  habit  of  ending 
his  letters  with  something  openly  idiotic.  Once 
he  bursts  out  with  "  Pray,  did  you  ever  see  an 
elephant  ?  "  ;  another  time  his  peroration  is  : 

"  The  Assizes  are  just  over.  I  was  there  ;  but 
I  a'nt  to  be  transported.  Adieu  !  " 

and  another  excursion  concludes  with  a  ludicrous 
burlesque  of  the  type  of  commonplaces  usually 
to  be  found  in  letters  : 

"  There  is  a  curious  woman  here  that  spins  Glass, 
and  makes  short  Aprons  and  furbelow'd  petti- 
coats of  it,  a  very  genteel  wear  for  summer,  & 
discover's  all  the  motions  of  the  limbs  to  great 
advantage.  She  is  a  successour  of  Jack,  the 
Aple  dumpling  Spinner's  :  my  Duck  has  eat  a 
Snail  &c.  :  &  I  am — yours  sincerely  T.  G." 

Those  who  think  of  poets  as  persons  without 
humour  who  live  in  a  permanent  exaltation  and 
are  quite  unlike  reasonable  beings  will  be  shocked 
with  Gray's  remarks  when  he  had,  to  the  pub- 
lisher's alarm,  withdrawn  a  poem  from  his 
forthcoming  small  volume  : 

"  but  to  supply  the  place  of  it  in  bulk,  lest  my 
work  should  be  mistaken  for  the  works  of  a  flea 
or  a  pismire,  I  promised  to  send  him  an  equal 

H7 


Books  in  General 

weight  of  poetry  or  prose  :  so,  since  my  return 
hither,  I  put  up  about  two  ounces  of  stuff  :  viz. 
The  Fatal  Sisters,  The  Descent  of  Odin  .  .  .  with 
all  this  I  shall  be  but  a  shrimp  of  an  author." 

On  a  night  nine  years  before  this,  General  Wolfe, 
as  his  boat  crept  towards  the  Quebec  bank  of  St. 
Lawrence,  had  recited  the  Elegy  to  his  companions 
and  told  them  that  he  had  rather  have  written 
that  poem  than  take  Quebec. 

Gray's  judgments  on  other  authors  (though  he 
was  unjust  to  the  more  fermentative  kind  of 
Frenchman)  were  uniformly  good.  He  suspected 
Ossian,  but  hoped  he  was  a  fraud  for  the  sake  of 
the  jest.  If,  he  said,  Macpherson  had  done  it 
all  to  hoax  fools,  "  I  would  undertake  a  journey 
into  the  Highlands  only  for  the  pleasure  of  seeing 
him."  He  read  Boswell's  early  book  on  Corsica 
and  almost  prophetically  observed  : 

"  The  pamphlet  proves  what  I  have  always 
maintained,  that  any  fool  may  write  a  most 
valuable  book  by  chance,  if  he  will  only  tell  us 
what  he  heard  and  saw  with  veracity." 

In  politics  he  was  interested  only  mildly,  but  he 
liked  to  gossip  about  them.  "  Do  oblige  me," 
he  writes  to  Walpole, 

"  with  a  change  in  the  Ministry  :  I  mean,  some- 
thing one  may  tell?  that  looks  as  if  it  were  near  at 
148 


A  Horrible  Bookseller 

hand ;  or  if  there  is  no  truth  to  be  had,  then  a 
good  likely  falsehood  for  the  same  purpose.  I 
am  sorry  to  be  so  reduced." 

"  A  good  likely  falsehood " :  is  it  not  in  per- 
petual demand  ? 


A  Horrible  Bookseller 

PEOPLE  often  complain  that  booksellers 
know  too  little  about  the  goods  they  sell. 
If  only,  the  argument  is,  books  were  sold 
by  men  of  taste,  familiar  with  their  contents,  the 
public  would  buy  more  good  literature :  as 
things  are,  the  blind  bookseller  leads  the  blind 
customer.  There  is  something  in  this.  An 
educated  bookseller  can  actually  educate  other 
people.  Many  intelligent  young  persons  reach 
the  age  of  twenty-one  without  having  met  a 
single  person  with  the  habit  of  good  reading, 
and  do  not  "  get  on  to  "  literature  because  it  has 
never  been  suggested  to  them  that  they  will  like 
it.  Booksellers  may  act  as  teachers.  There  are 
booksellers,  though  not  many,  who  make  a 
practice  of  "  nursing "  promising  young  cus- 
tomers, gradually  cultivating  their  taste  until 
they  become  confirmed  book-lovers  and  book- 
buyers.  One  such  complained  to  me  not  long 
ago  that  he  had  had  scores  of  likely  colts  taken 
away  from  him  by  Lord  Kitchener,  and  did  not 

149 


Books  in  General 

know  how  many  of  them  would  come  back. 
That  is  an  ideal  sort  of  man  for  the  trade  in 
modern  literature.  One  might  say,  in  fact,  that 
in  a  perfect  world  (from  the  book-buyer's  point 
of  view)  the  dealers  in  new  books  would  know 
everything  about  books,  and  the  dealers  in  old 
books  would  know  nothing  whatever  about 
them.  The  point  of  this  last  subsection  is 
obvious,  but  the  other  day  I  had  an  experience 
that  greatly  fortified  my  view.  I  had  often  met 
the  second-hand  bookseller  whose  learning  pre- 
vented one  from  buying  anything  cheap  from 
him  ;  I  have  now  encountered  one  whose  interest 
in  his  subject  prevented  one  from  buying  any- 
thing at  all. 

He  was  not  so  much  a  really  learned  man  as  a 
man  with  what  is  called  "an  inexhaustible  fund 
of  information."  It  is  quite  possible  that  if  he  had 
had  a  real  rarity  in  his  shop  he  would  have  known 
nothing  about  it.  But  about  the  promiscuity 
of  his  reading  there  was  no  doubt.  When  I 
entered  the  shop  he  was  seated  at  a  table  absorb- 
ing something  that  looked  as  if  it  might  be  the 
Travels  of  Livingstone  or  Speke.  His  spectacles 
were  on  his  forehead,  his  elbows  on  the  table, 
his  hands  in  his  hair  ;  and  his  beard  almost 
touched  his  book.  "  Do  you  mind  if  I  go 
through  ?  "  I  said.  "  Sairtainly,"  he  said,  be- 
traying his  origin.  "  And  what  may  you  be 
interested  in  ?  "  "Oh  ...  books,"  I  replied 
vaguely.  "  That  is  a  verra  conseederable  cate- 
150 


A  Horrible  Bookseller 

gory,"  he  observed.  Was  it  poetry  I  liked  ? 
he  went  on.  I  murmured  "  Yes,"  and  he  led  me 
to  the  place  where  he  kept  it.  But  before  I  had 
got  my  fingers  on  a  book  he  made  it  evident  that 
it  was  he  and  not  I  that  was  going  to  have  the 
"  look  round."  Here,  for  example,  was  a  volume 
of  Kirke  White.  Had  I  ever  read  him  ?  How 
wonderful  was  that  hymn  (quoted  at  length)  of 
his  !  What  a  career  !  He  was  a  butcher's  son 
and  a  lawyer's  clerk.  He  had  a  gift  for  mathe- 
matics, and  they  gave  him  a  sizarship  at  Cam- 
bridge. He  would  have  been  one  of  the  greatest 
figures  in  English  literature  had  he  lived.  Was  I 
interested  in  Italian  books  ?  Well,  then,  perhaps 
I  would  like  a  good  copy  of  (!  !  !)  /  Promessi  Sposi. 
It  was  extraordinary  the  number  of  copies  of 
that  book  which  must  have  been  printed.  But 
there  was  no  supply  without  a  demand. 

I  tried  in  vain  to  check  the  torrent  with  some 
sort  of  remark  which,  though  polite,  might, 
nevertheless,  have  an  air  of  finality.  It  was  no 
good.  My  fingers  never  got  beyond  touching 
the  back  of  a  book  before  he  had  taken  down 
another,  pulled  me  round,  and  fixed  me  with  a 
glittering  eye  for  which  the  Ancient  Mariner 
himself  would  have  been  tempted  to  offer  a  large 
sum.  Godwin,  now.  Did  I  like  Caleb  Williams  ? 
Yes,  of  course  !  But  had  I  read  his  History  of 
England  F  It  was  by  way  of  being  a  reply  to 
Clarendon.  Clarendon  was  a  great  writer.  But 
he  was  not  impartial.  And  the  worst  of  it  was 


Books  in  General 

that  he  seemed  to  be  impartial  when  he  was  most 
unfair.  When  he  was  sacrificing  everything  for 
his  King  he  little  thought  how  his  loyalty  would 
be  rewarded.  He  was  too  moral  for  Charles  II  ; 
but,  what  was  worse,  he  kept  the  purse-strings 
too  tight.  He  would  not  give  him  money  for 
one  of  his  mistresses.  Was  it  Barbara  Palmer  ? 
No,  it  was  not  Barbara  Palmer,  and  it  was  not 
Nelly  Gwyn.  At  any  rate,  it  was  one  of  them. 
And  when,  in  the  end,  the  grant  was  made  to  her, 
she  died  before  she  got  the  money  ! 

This  appeared  to  amuse  the  old  man.  When 
he  had  laughed  himself  out,  it  was  to  resume 
with  some  work,  dated  1784,  which  contained  a 
recipe  for  making  a  Prime  Minister  :  the  chief 
ingredients  being  hypocrisy,  mendacity,  corrup- 
tion, and  cant.  This  opened  up  a  large  field  of 
speculation.  Who  was  Premier  in  1784  ?  Why, 
of  course,  it  was  young  Billy  Pitt !  ("  Yes,"  I 
said.)  No,  it  was  Rockingham.  ("  Yes,"  I 
said.)  No,  it  wasn't ;  it  was  Bute.  So  it  pro- 
ceeded. I  spent,  in  all,  two  hours  in  that  shop  ; 
in  the  course  of  which  time  I  had  stolen  glances 
at  about  six  worthless  books.  For  all  I  know  it 
was  as  full  of  gems  of  purest  ray  serene  as  are  the 
dark  unfathomed  caves  of  ocean.  I  left  without 
making  a  single  purchase,  and  the  proprietor 
seemed  quite  hurt  at  this  unfriendly  response  to 
his  attentions.  How  that  old  man  earns  his 
living  I  don't  know.  I  think  he  must  have 
private  means.  But  in  future  I  shall  have  a 
152 


The  Troubles  of  a  Catholic 

warmer  feeling  than  ever  for  the  sort  of  red- 
nosed  second-hand  bookseller,  now,  unfortunately, 
not  very  common,  who  knows  only  the  outsides 
of  books,  and  who  sits  smoking  on  a  heap  of 
rubbish  in  the  corner  of  his  shop  with  the  air  of  a 
tramp  resting  on  a  roadside  pile  of  stones. 


The  Troubles  of  a  Catholic 

BEING  at  the  moment  in  bed  with  influenza, 
I  was  at  once  incapable  of  intellectual 
effort  and  in  need  of  spiritual  sustenance. 
I  had  therefore  been  reading  a  little  Theology. 
The  more  modern  works  of  the  kind  in  my 
possession  are  at  once  too  profound  in  thought 
and  too  arid  in  phraseology,  so  I  worked 
rapidly  backwards.  One  never  knows  what  one 
is  going  to  come  across,  and  in  the  beginning  of 
A  Just  Discharge  to  Dr.  Stillingflee?  s  Unjust 
Charge  of  Idolatry  Against  the  Church  of  Rome 
with  a  Discovery  of  the  Vanity  of  his  late  Defense 
in  his  Pretended  Answer  to  a  Book  Entitled 
Catholicks  No  Idolaters  By  way  of  Dialogue 
Between  Eunomius,  a  Conformist,  and  Catharinus, 
a  Nonconformist,  I  struck  a  very  pathetic 
thing.  The  work  was  written,  I  believe, 
by  the  Catholic  controversialist  Godden,  and 
published  in  1677.  At  that  time  it  was  diffi- 
cult for  Catholics  to  get  anything  out  in 
England,  and  this  work  was  published  at  Paris. 

153 


Books  in  General 

Hence  the  unhappy  author's  statement  about 
"  Errata  "  : 

"  The  English  Press  being  watch'd  of  late,  as 
the  Orchard  of  the  Hesperides  was  of  old,  and  a 
necessity  arising  from  thence  of  making  use  of  a 
Paris  Printer,  who  understands  not  a  word  of 
English,  the  Reader  will  have  no  cause  to  wonder, 
if  he  sometimes  meet  with  ant  for  and,  bu  for 
but,  te  for  the,  is  for  it,  tit  for  tis,  wish  for  with, 
etc.,  and  oftentimes  with  false  Pointings,  words 
unduly  joined,  and  syllables  un-artificially  divided 
at  the  end  of  lines,  as  Ro-me,  appropria-U,  and 
the  like.  I  can  assure  him,  the  Correction  of 
the  Press  cost  little  less  pains  than  the  writing 
of  the  Treatise." 

In  that  century  a  great  many  English  books  were 
printed  on  the  Continent,  at  Paris,  Douai,  and 
elsewhere ;  and  the  situation  thus  candidly 
explained  must  have  been  a  common  one.  A 
collection  of  English  books  printed  abroad,  which 
would  be  interesting  for  other  reasons,  might 
also  have  an  added  interest  as  a  repository  of 
comic  misprints.  But  my  disease  must  have 
brought  me  very  low  that  I  can  spend  my 
time  thinking  of  that. 


'54 


The  Bible  as  Raw  Material 


The  Bible  as  Raw  Material 

MR.  GEORGE  MOORE'S  new  novel, 
The  Brook  Kerith,  is  a  Biblical  story. 
Mr.  Moore  has  adopted  the  legend 
which  says  that  Our  Lord  survived  the  Cruci- 
fixion. He  is  taken  away  alive  and  joins  a  colony 
of  the  Essenes,  complications  afterwards  arising 
with  St.  Paul.  The  book  is  named  after  the  site 
of  the  Essene  settlement ;  Mr.  Moore  personally 
toured  the  Holy  Land  looking  for  a  really  eligible 
position.  The  story  opens  with  a  description  of 
the  boyhood  of  Joseph  of  Arimathea  :  a  beginning 
which  at  least  avoids  the  reproach  of  being 
obvious. 

One  might  almost  say  that  literature  about 
Biblical  personages  can  only  hope  to  be  good  if 
its  writers  either  deal  with  episodes  that  are  not 
related  in  the  Bible  or  if  they  tell  the  Bible 
stones  from  an  entirely  novel  and  unconventional 
point  of  view.  Anatole  France's  story  about 
Pontius  Pilate,  The  Procurator  of  Judaea,  has  this 
last  quality,  and  owes  its  success  mainly  to  the 
odd  and  unexpected  angle  from  which  the  subject 
is  approached.  The  unusual  angle  we  may  at 
least  expect  from  Mr.  George  Moore.  Attempts 
at  covering  the  same  ground  as  the  Bible,  at 
amplifying  an  already  fine  thing,  are  almost 
predestined  to  failure.  One  can  understand  the 

155 


Books  in  General 

temptation.  A  modern  writer  comes  across  a 
noble  story  or  a  fine  lyric  passage,  and  thinks, 
"  What  a  scandal  that  this  should  be  buried 
away  out  of  sight  in  the  Old  Testament !  It  is 
just  the  theme  for  me."  The  lure  is  so  strong 
that  one  contemporary  poet  has  attempted,  and 
failed  (through  not  ignominiously),  to  rewrite 
David's  Lament  for  Jonathan,  and  another  has 
endeavoured  to  adapt  the  dramatic  poem  Job 
to  the  modern  stage.  It  was  a  lamentable 
affair,  redeemed  only  from  complete  incon- 
spicuousness  by  a  highly  incongruous  chorus 
inspired  by  Swinburne  and  by  an  arresting  entry 
of  Satan  with  the  salutation  : 

Ho  Job  !    How  goes  it  ? 

No  modern — but  I  have  not  thoroughly  ransacked 
my  memory — has  really  succeeded  in  rewriting  a 
Bible  story.  The  most  striking  of  recent  efforts 
was  Mr.  Sturge  Moore's  Judith.  Mr.  Robert 
Trevelyan's  poem,  The  Foolishness  of  Solomon 
(a  title  that,  for  some  vague  reason,  I  always 
resent),  belonged  to  the  other  class  of  works 
dealing  with  Biblical  personages  (though  he 
brought  in  a  Chinese  mandarin  as  well),  but  not 
on  the  Biblical  lines.  The  most  recent  effort  at 
elaborate  treatment  of  the  New  Testament  story 
was,  I  suppose,  Maeterlinck's  Mary  Magdalene. 
But  in  spite  of  its  unorthodoxy  and  the  novelty 
(at  least  as  far  as  the  Bible  is  concerned,  for  some 
of  it  was  borrowed  from  a  German)  of  the  inci- 


The  Bible  as  Raw  Material 

dents,  that  play  scarcely  competed,  in  point  of 
dialogue  or  dramatic  force,  with  the  more  old- 
fashioned  narratives  of  Matthew,  Mark,  Luke, 
and  John. 

Milton  is  the  one  English  writer  who  has  done 
anything  with  Biblical  materials  on  a  large  scale. 
It  will  be  observed,  however,  that  in  Paradise 
Lost  he  enormously  elaborated  the  story  in 
Genesis  ;  that  his  Adam  and  Eve  are  somewhat 
colourless  ;  and  that  the  finest  parts  of  his  poem 
are  not  directly  concerned  with  "  man's  first 
disobedience  and  the  fruit,"  but  deal  with 
regions  into  which  the  author  of  Genesis  did  not 
penetrate.  In  Samson  Agonistes  he  did  take  a 
story  from  the  Bible  and  make  out  of  it  a  work 
of  art  equal  to  almost  anything  in  our  language. 
Byron's  Cain  might  mostly  have  been  about 
Nietzsche  for  all  the  connexion  it  has  with  the 
Bible  :  but  it  is  not  very  good.  Almost  every 
fine  subject  in  the  Scriptures  must  have  been 
attacked  at  one  time  or  another.  There  have 
been  a  few  good  short  Biblical  poems,  like 
Browning's  Saul.  But  the  only  other  really 
reputable  Biblical  poem  on  a  large  scale  that  I 
can  think  of  is  Charles  Wells's  Joseph  and  His 
Brethren,  which  has  strength  as  a  story  and  some 
passages  of  fine  imagery.  Wells  belonged  to  the 
generation  of  Keats  and  lived  on  into  our  own 
time.  He  was  an  engineer,  stopped  writing 
when  young,  and  was  admired  by  Rossetti  and 
Swinburne.  His  poem  however  cannot  really 


Books  in  General 

be  considered  such  good  reading  as  the  Bible 
account  of  the  same  story.  One  of  the  episodes 
that  came  within  his  purview,  that  of  Joseph 
and  Potiphar's  wife,  has  been  a  subject  for  poets 
in  all  ages.  The  last  endeavour  that  I  can  recall 
to  make  something  out  of  it  was  a  somewhat 
bejewelled  one  of  Sir  Edwin  Arnold's.  The 
longest,  I  should  think,  is  Joshua  Sylvester's 
intolerably  tedious  series  of  couplets  entitled 
The  Maiden's  Blush.  Why  he  conferred  that 
title  upon  such  a  poem  I  don't  know,  unless  he 
was  thinking  of  what  might  happen  to  the  less 
robust  of  his  female  readers.  Those  parts  of 
Holy  Writ  which  are  of  purely  historical  interest 
have  not  been  freely  drawn  on  by  English 
writers.  I  don't  remember  that  much  has  been 
done  with  the  Maccabees,  and  the  chronicles  of 
the  Kings  of  Israel,  which  supplied  Racine  with  a 
subject  for  his  Athalie,  have  left  English  writers 
cold.  Jehu  drove  furiously,  Jeroboam  the  son 
of  Nebat  made  Israel  to  sin,  and  Rehoboam 
afflicted  his  people  with  scorpions  instead  of 
whips  ;  but  their  violence  does  not  seem  to  fire 
the  poetic  imagination  as  does  that  of  Herod, 
about  whom  we  know  very  little  more.  But 
Herod,  of  course,  was  fond  of  the  Russian  ballet ; 
which  brings  him  closer  to  us. 


158 


How  to  avoid  Bad  English 


How  to  avoid  Bad  English 

GOOD  books  on  the  practice  of  writing  are 
rare.  Sir  A.  Quiller-Couch's  On  the  Art 
of  Writing  is  extraordinarily  good.  It 
contains  the  lectures  he  delivered  at  Cambridge 
just  before  the  war  ;  and  even  readers  who  do 
not  desire  to  write  at  all  will  find  Sir  Arthur's 
jokes  very  amusing  and  his  criticisms,  general 
and  particular,  sound  and  (what  is  more  unusual) 
new.  He  touches  a  great  variety  of  subjects, 
though  always  in  some  relation  to  the  main 
theme.  He  is  especially  illuminating  on  the 
Authorized  Version,  -and  on  Homer's  skill  in 
dealing  with  the  "  Primary  Difficulty  of  Verse  " 
— that  is  to  say,  the  difficulty  of  filling  up  the 
interstices  between  highly  emotional  passages 
without  lapsing  into  dull  prosiness.  His  most 
diverting  chapter  is  that  on  what  he  calls  "  Jar- 
gon," which  he  distinguishes  from  Journalese. 
The  distinction  he  draws  may  be  appreciated  if  I 
concoct  examples  of  both  commodities.  Writing 
in  "  Jargon  "  I  might  say : 

"  In  the  case  of  Sir  Arthur  Quiller-Couch 
I  am  proud  and  happy  to  associate  myself 
in  the  fullest  sense  with  a  work  of  this 
useful,  elevating,  instructive,  and  educative 
character." 

159 


Books  in  General 

Writing  in  Journalese,  as  he  defines  it,  I  might 
say  : 

"  '  Q.'s  '  brilliant  book  goes  to  the  root  of  the 
matter.  It  strikes  home.  He  is  out  to  slay  the 
dragons  of  bad  writing.  He  burns  them  with 
the  fire  of  his  passion.  He  lashes  them  with  the 
scourge  of  his  invective.  He  tears  them  to 
shreds  and  tatters  with  the  shrapnel  of  his  ridi- 
cule. He  will  not  sheathe  the  sword  until  .  .  ." 

Yes.  .  .  .  The  first  kind  consists  of  woolly, 
indefinite  words,  of  redundancies  and  shapeless 
prolixities  ;  the  man  who  writes  the  second  is 
trying  to  produce  what  he  believes  to  be  "  litera- 
ture "  by  means  of  imagery  and  rhythmical 
movement.  Sir  Arthur  says  that  the  greatest 
propagators  of  Jargon  are  public  bodies,  politi- 
cians, and  so  on  ;  but  he  recognizes  that  jour- 
nalists also  use  it.  The  two  things,  in  fact,  are 
often  seen  in  one  article.  I  conceive  that  there 
might  be  passages  which  would  fall  into  either 
of  Sir  Arthur's  classes.  But  there  is  a  clear 
difference  between  bad  sentences  produced  by  an 
effort  to  say  something  and  those  produced  by 
an  effort  to  say  something  vividly.  All  bad 
writers,  however,  have  common  defects,  and 
these  are  dealt  with  in  other  chapters. 

Every  one  who  has  thought  about  the  art  at  all 
has  discovered  for  himself  the  truths  that  Sir 
Arthur  tabulates.  One  must  aim  at  accuracy 
1 60 


How  to  avoid  Bad  English 

(a  word  that  covers  almost  everything  that  is 
needful)   and  at  clarity ;    one  must,  normally, 
prefer  the  concrete  to  the  abstract  word,  and 
the  short  word  to  the  long  ;   and  one  must  avoid 
the  superfluous  adjective.     How  well  we  know 
these  rules  ;  how  certain  we  are  of  their  validity  ; 
how  feebly  we  struggle  to  obey  them  !     At  all 
times  the  ready-made  sentence,  the  makeshift 
epithet,    the    pot-shot   image   must   have    been 
ready  to  the  hand.     In  the  present  age,  when  we 
live  in  a  honeycomb  of  print  and  begin  each  day 
by  exposing  ourselves,  before,  during,  or  after 
breakfast,  to  masses  of  the  weakest  English  we 
can  find,  the  job  of  writing  well  is  more  difficult 
than  ever.     Our  fluency  is  the  measure  of  our 
accursed  memory.     We  have  bales   of  phrases 
ready   for   every   experience  we   describe ;     our 
pigeon-holes  are  stuffed  with  dead  metaphors  and 
bogus  synonyms  ;  and  we  are  always  ready  to  say 
in  six  words  what  ought  to  be  said  in  two.     Every 
time  we  sit  down  at  a  desk  or  open  our  lips  to 
speak,   the   nymphs   Jargonia   and   Journalesia, 
besieging  us  as  the  sylphs  besieged  St.  Anthony, 
hold  out  their  hands  full  of  glittering  treasures 
which   will    save    us    the    trouble    of   thinking. 
Usually  we  do  not  even  see  them ;   we  find  the 
fatal  gifts  in  our  hands  and  employ  them  without 
remembering  their  origin.     And  the  descent  to 
hell  is  rapid. 

It  is  good  to  revise  :    to  correct,  to  improve, 
and  to  delete.     Few,  even  of  the  most  careful 

L  161 


Books  in  General 

writers,  find  their  proof-sheets  free  from  trite 
and  superfluous  words  which  they  would  be 
ashamed  to  publish.  It  is  better  still  to  think 
long  before  writing,  to  make  sure  that  one's 
thoughts  are  clear-cut  before  one  gives  them  a 
visible  form.  That  habit  it  is  a  writer's  duty  to 
acquire.  But  it  does  not  do  to  be  incessantly 
and  acutely  conscious  of  the  qualities  of  good 
writing  and  the  difficulty  of  securing  them. 
That  way  madness  lies.  Sometimes,  to  a  man 
who  broods  overmuch  on  these  things,  every 
phrase  will  appear  a  cliche,  and  every  word  a 
dummy.  "  God  help  me  !  "  he  will  moan,  "  I 
have  called  the  sun  '  bright '  and  the  grass 
'  green '  !  Millions  of  men  before  me  have 
written  '  bright  sun  '  and  '  green  grass.'  I  know 
I  did  not  think  freshly  and  independently  at 
these  objects.  I  put  the  adjectives  down 
mechanically.  I  have  merely  heard  that  the 
grass  was  green.  Why  haven't  I  looked  at  it 
through  my  own  eyes  ?  If  a  real  writer  looked 
at  it,  I  don't  for  a  moment  suppose  that  its 
greenness  would  be  the  attribute  which  would 
impinge  most  forcibly  upon  him.  Very  likely 
it  isn't  green  at  all."  This,  I  say,  does  not 
do.  I  don't  suggest  that  there  is  anything 
peculiar  about  grass  which  should  make  a 
novel  statement  about  it  impossible.  In  fact, 
Swinburne  said  that  grass  is  hair,  and  Mr. 
Chesterton  has  very  probably  said  that  it  is 
red.  I  merely  use  "  green  grass  "  as  an  ex- 
ample of  the  sort  of  thing  that  an  exaggerated 
162 


Woodland  Creatures 

fastidiousness  might  lead  a  man  to  question  in 
his  own  work. 

There  remains  one  property  of  good  prose  that 
no  amount  of  painstaking  or  instruction  can 
produce.  That  is  rhythm.  It  is,  indeed,  re- 
markable that  one  of  the  most  elaborate  analyses 
of  prose  rhythms  hitherto  made  was  made  by  a 
writer  whose  own  prose  is  anything  but  musical. 
Either  Providence  has  given  a  man  an  ear  or  it 
has  not ;  if  it  has  not,  he  will  not  write  great 
prose.  But  his  prose  will  be  better  in  proportion 
as  he  obeys  the  principles  of  good  writing  as 
"  Q."  enunciates  them.  One  suggestion  more 
might  be  useful  for  him.  That  is,  that  he  will  be 
well  advised  in  making  his  uneuphonious  sen- 
tences short  if  he  desires  his  writing  to  be  an 
efficient  instrument  of  persuasion. 


Woodland  Creatures 

"  T^ARNASSUS  in  Piccadilly,"  is  the  head- 

I— ^  line   I   see  in  my  paper.     Follows   an 

JL       account  of  a  "  seance  "    promoted  by 

Miss  Elizabeth  Asquith  in  aid  of  the  Star  and 

Garter  Home.     Ten  or  twelve  poets  read  works 

of  their  own  to  an  audience  of  four  hundred  who 

had  paid  a  guinea  apiece.     Outside  the  house  a 

large  concourse  watched  the  poets  arrive.     There 

were  Mr.  Yeats,  Sir  O.  Seaman,  Mr.  Hewlett, 

163 


Books  in  General 

Sir  Henry  Newbolt,  Mr.  Binyon,  Mr.  de  la  Mare, 
Mrs.  Woods,  Mr.  Belloc,  and  Mr.  W.  H.  Davies, 
who  is  described  as  looking  like  "  one  of  his  own 
woodland  creatures."  I  read  that  one  of  the 
reciters  intoned,  that  another  was  bluff,  and 
that  a  third  ought  to  get  somebody  else  to  read 
for  him  ;  also  that  Mr.  Birrell,  the  chairman, 
sat  with  his  head  buried  in  his  hands  until  the 
arrival  of  the  first  comic  turn,  Mr.  Belloc's.  But 
I  wish  I  had  been  there  :  for  the  account  does 
not  tell  me  how  it  was  really  done. 

Did  the  poets  sit  in  the  audience  and  march  up 
to  the  platform  one  by  one  as  their  turns  came  ? 
Did  they  stand  out  of  sight,  each  gliding  in 
singly,  and  then  retiring  into  the  antral  seclusion 
of  the  wings  when  ten  minutes  was  up  ?  Or  did 
they  rather,  as  I  prefer  to  think,  sit  on  the 
platform,  the  whole  dozen  of  them  in  a  semi- 
circle, listening  to,  and  discreetly  applauding, 
each  other's  efforts.  I  am  sorry  I  missed  it. 
Some  of  them  will  have  been  exalted  by  a  sense 
of  the  holiness  of  their  work  ;  their  eyes  will 
have  looked  out  across  the  audience  with  a 
prophetic  and  otherworldly  fire.  Others  will 
have  been  uneasy  and  not  knowing  (unless  a 
table  was  thoughtfully  provided)  what  to  do 
with  their  feet.  And  one  or  two,  I  think,  will 
have  been  preoccupied  with  the  control  of  their 
own  faces,  which,  on  such  an  occasion,  must 
have  "  strained  at  the  leash  of  dignified  de- 
portment." 
164 


Woodland  Creatures 

Why  is  it  that  so  many  people  feel  awkward 
when  they  are  present  at  a  public  recitation  by  a 
poet  of  his  own  verse  ;  and  why  should  writers 
shrink  from  such  recitations  ?  Amusement  on 
such  occasions  is  closely  allied  to  sheepishness  : 
both  spring  from  a  feeling  of  inappropriateness,  a 
sense  that  "  the  fitness  of  things "  is  being 
violated.  We  are  accustomed,  of  course,  to  the 
other  kind  of  recitation,  the  reading  by  an  in- 
terpreter who  is  not  a  creator,  and  who  is  not 
exposing  his  heart  in  public  :  the  prize  child  and 
the  local  elocutionist  who  declaims  Tennyson's 
Revenge,  daintily  fluttering  his  fingers  in  the  air 
when  he  comes  to  the  part  about  the  pinnace 
which  is  like  a  bird.  But  our  poets  themselves 
have  not  recited  much.  It  was  not  always  so. 
"  'Omer  smote  his  bloomin'  lyre "  in  public  ; 
he  had  nowhere  else  to  smite  it,  for  he  (pre- 
sumably) could  not  write,  and  his  audiences 
could  not  read.  Every  composer  of  tribal 
lays,  from  Tubal-Cain  (unless  his  songs  were 
Lieder  ohne  Worte)  to  the  Druidic  harpists,  sang 
his  compositions  to  his  admiring  fellows  with- 
out embarrassment ;  troubadours  and  mediaeval 
laureates  had  no  objection  at  all  to  public 
recitation.  Most  foreigners,  one  supposes,  do 
not  feel  so  strongly  as  we  do  about  it  now; 
but  the  timidity  of  Englishmen  in  the  matter 
is  very  pronounced.  I  am  sure  that  nothing 
short  of  the  needs  of  a  War  Fund  would  have 
induced  some  of  the  Piccadilly  performers  to 
face  the  ordeal. 

165 


Books  in  General 

It  is  all  a  part  of  our  national  reserve,  that  very 
reserve  which,  perhaps,  accounts  for  the  greatness 
and  volume  of  our  poetry.  In  poetry  our  feelings 
find  an  outlet.  We  have  the  habit  of  concealing  our 
finest  sentiments  and  our  profoundest  emotions. 
We  don't  mind  putting  them  into  books  and  then 
running  round  the  corner  out  of  sight.  But  we 
dislike  unbosoming  them  viva  voce  in  the  actual 
physical  presence  of  strangers.  Our  dislike  of 
"  scenes  "  covers  equally  the  public  row  in  a 
restaurant  and  the  public  demonstration  of  our 
yearnings  after  virtue  and  the  stirrings  of  our 
hearts  when  we  hear  the  nightingale  or  listen  to 
the  Atlantic  at  night.  We  sit  bolt  upright  at 
concerts ;  look  at  pictures  with  our  mouths 
set  like  vices  ;  and  observe  "  Yes,  very  nice  "  as, 
with  wistfulness  in  our  breasts,  we  stand  on  a 
hill  and  look  at  a  wooded  panorama  under  the 
moon.  The  grotesque  Englishman  who  stares 
at  a  sunset  and  then  laughs  and  says  it  looks  like 
a  fried  egg  is  really  bolting  in  terror  from  the 
admission  that  it  looks  like  the  flaming  ramparts 
of  the  world.  So,  if  somebody  gets  up  to  recite 
his  most  intimate  feelings,  we  feel  it  as  almost  an 
indecency.  He  is  usually  bashful  about  it  him- 
self, and  unable  therefore  to  recite  with  that 
abandonment  which  will  do  his  poem  justice. 
The  audience,  at  least  that  part  of  it  which  is 
most  intelligent  and  self-conscious,  feels  as  if  it 
were  intruding.  It  is  like  eavesdropping  or 
opening  a  stranger's  letters.  And  everybody  is 
conscious  of  the  national  titter  in  the  background. 
166 


Woodland  Creatures 

When  the  authors  of  Prize  Poems  at  the  Univer- 
sities give  the  official  reading  of  their  verses,  their 
friends  invariably  assemble  to  grin  in  the  galleries. 
Undergraduates  have  still  some  naturalness.  They 
titter  aloud,  but  the  adult  Englishman  titters  in 
silence.  It  is  reserve  that  brings  forth  the  titter 
and  it  is  still  more  reserve  that  suppresses  it ; 
just  as  it  is  reserve  that  makes  our  soldiers  sing, 
not  invocations  to  England,  home,  or  glory,  but 
comic  songs  about  cowardice  and  death. 

The  foregoing  series  of  platitudes,  slightly 
varied  in  accordance  with  each  writer's  tastes 
and  talents,  is  invariably  repeated  when  the 
character  of  English  people  is  under  discussion. 
But  it  may  be  that,  at  any  rate  in  our  attitude 
towards  poetry,  we  are  changing.  In  the  last 
four  or  five  years  the  habit  of  public  readings 
has  been  growing  ;  and  some  of  our  poets  have 
grown  quite  addicted  to  them.  This  may  be  a 
time  of  transition  :  if  the  enthusiasts  for  recita- 
tion keep  at  it  hard  enough,  people's  constraint 
may  be  overcome,  and  it  may  be  regarded  as  quite 
an  ordinary  and  natural  thing  for  a  man  to  stand 
on  a  platform  and,  with  all  the  passion  he  can 
release  and  all  the  vocal  modulation  he  can 
command,  chant  his  lyrics  to  congregations 
which  will  yield  themselves  to  him  with  all  the 
spontaneity,  though  less  than  all  the  gestures  and 
ejaculations,  of  a  Welsh  revivalist's  converts. 
It  is  a  commonplace  that  poetry  gains  by  being 
spoken  ;  and  that  if  verse  were  always  read  and 

167 


Books  in  General 

never  recited,  poets  would  be  in  danger  of  getting 
out  of  touch  with  natural  speech-rhythms.  We 
could  do  with  a  little  less  amusement  and  a  little 
more  excitement ;  and  we  might  as  well,  if 
cowardice  or  a  sense  of  humour  are  the  only 
things  that  hold  us  back,  hold  and  attend  public 
readings  until  we  are  as  unselfconscious  about 
them  as  we  are  about  church  services  or  political 
meetings.  The  worst  of  it  is  that  poets  do  not 
invariably  read  well,  and  that  few  persons  with 
the  taste  for  standing  on  a  platform  and  declaim- 
ing are  competent  to  take  an  author's  place  as 
reciter  of  his  work.  There  is  such  a  thing  as  the 
inspired  reader  of  other  people's  verse  ;  but  the 
understanding,  the  inclination,  and  the  voice 
cannot  be  expected  to  come  often  together. 
When  the  author  himself  is  reciting  you  can  at 
least  be  certain  that  the  speaker — unless  he  is  a 
very  "  advanced  "  poet  indeed — understands  the 
work  which  he  is  repeating.  With  other  per- 
formers one  always  has  to  take  one's  chance. 
From  the  professional  reciter  God  save  us  all. 


Other  People's  Books 

E1E  most  people,   I   possess  a  number  of 
books  which  I  have  not  read.     I  am  not 
referring  to  volumes,  such  as  the  Speculum 
Morale  of  Vincent  of  Beauvais  or  the  commentary 
of  (Ecolampadius  on  St.  John's  Gospel,  which  I 
168 


Other  People's  Books 

bought  merely  because  they  looked  pleasant  and 
which  nobody  on  earth  could  be  expected  to  read. 
I  mean  books  in  English  and  of  comparatively 
recent  date.  There  is,  for  example,  Kant's 
Critique  of  Pure  Reason,  for  which,  in  a  weak 
moment,  I  paid  some  shillings  with  the  feeling 
that,  as  a  cogitative  being,  I  ought  not  to  leave 
so  notable  a  stone  unturned.  The  feeling  passed 
and  never  came  back.  And  there  is  Ranke's 
History  of  the  Popes — up  to  the  present  undis- 
turbed by  me ;  there  are  The  Last  Days  of 
Pompeii,  Romola,  Fittoria,  Carlyle's  essays  on 
Burns  and  Scott,  What  Maisie  knew,  What 
Katy  did,  and  dozens  of  other  modern  works, 
some  of  which,  if  I  live,  I  shall  certainly  read, 
and  others  of  which,  I  am  sure,  I  shall  never 
begin.  But  it  makes  no  difference.  Whether 
he  has  read  them  or  not,  a  man's  own  books  get, 
in  a  manner,  stale  to  him.  If  a  book  remains 
for  years  unopened  on  one's  shelves  it  becomes 
increasingly  difficult  to  read  it.  Yet  if  one  finds 
another  edition  of  it  in  somebody  else's  house  one 
may  fly  to  it,  and,  under  the  same  conditions,  one 
may  read  or  re-read  almost  anything  one  finds. 

So  it  is,  at  the  moment,  with  me.  I  am  in  a 
place  previously  unknown  to  me.  It  is  bestrewn 
with  books ;  and,  penned  to  the  house^by  the 
brilliant  summer  weather,  I  have  been  doing 
some  miscellaneous  reading.  For  one  thing  I 
have  gone  solidly  once  more  through  Mr.  Thomas 
Hardy's  verse.  How  extraordinarily  good  it  is  ! 

169 


Books  in  General 

And  how  remarkably  he  has  gone  on  improving, 
especially  as  a  metrist.  But  more  than  ever, 
after  a  heavy  dose  of  these  compressed  statements 
of  his  point  of  view,  one  realizes  his  determined 
and  unmitigated  gloom.  It  is  at  its  densest  in 
Wessex  Poems,  and  in  places  one  laughs  outright 
at  it.  He  illustrated  the  book  himself,  his 
drawing  is  naive,  and  the  sketch  of  two  floors 
of  a  church,  the  pews  (and  two  lovers)  above, 
and  the  skulls  and  cross-bones  below,  has  an  "  I 
will  be  grim  at  all  costs  "  air  about  it  that  robs 
it  of  all  its  horror.  The  story  attached  is  a 
neat  one.  The  man  is  a  consumptive  about  to 
die  ;  he  asks  the  woman  if  she  loves  him  ?  She 
falsely  says  "  Yes  "  in  order  to  brighten  his  last 
hours.  He  dies,  and  her  life  is  ever  after  blighted 
because  she  cannot  reconcile  herself  to  a  Universe 
in  which  the  telling  of  such  lies  is  a  moral  obliga- 
tion. There  is  another  small  drama  in  which  a 
woman,  maltreated  by  her  husband,  dies,  telling 
her  old  lover  that  she  wishes  she  had  married 
him  and  that  her  child  could  have  been  his  child, 
and  asking  him  to  see  that  the  brutal  husband 
does  not  ill-treat  the  child.  The  brutal  husband 
remarries  and  does  ill-treat  the  child.  One  day 
he  finds  the  lover  mourning  on  the  dead  wife's 
grave,  and  demands  by  what  right  he  is  there. 
The  lover,  remembering  the  death-bed  remark 
and  suddenly  seeing  a  chance  of  saving  the  child, 
says  that  he  has  every  right  to  be  there  as  he  was 
really  the  father  of  the  child.  His  supposed 
offspring  is  then  left  on  his  doorstep,  to  be  looked 
170 


Other  People's  Books 

after  carefully,  and  he  spends  his  time  wondering 
whether  he  was  justified  in  telling,  etc.  Prob- 
ably these  stories,  if  expanded  into  novels, 
might  convince  ;  as  narrative  poems  they  do 
not ;  and  when  they  are  squeezed  into  the  brief 
compass  of  the  Satires  of  Circumstance  they  are 
grotesquely  Life  as  Thomas  Hardy  makes  it  and 
not  Life  as  Thomas  Hardy  sees  it. 

It  is  a  little  bold  in  these  days  to  admit  that 
one  hasn't  read  the  whole  of  Mr.  Conrad's  works, 
but  until  this  week  I  had  never  laid  hands  on 
Almayer's  Folly.  It  was  his  first  book.  In  his 
Reminiscences  he  gives  an  account  of  how  it  was 
begun,  in  a  Pimlico  lodging-house,  when  he  was  a 
sea  captain  and  carried  about  the  ocean  for  five 
years  until  (when  he  was  thirty-five)  he  finished 
it.  When,  half-done  and  laid  by,  it  was  yellowing 
and  mouldering,  he  showed  it  to  his  first  reader,  a 
Cambridge  man  going  to  Australia  for  his  health, 
and  asked  him  if  it  was  worth  completing.  The 
passenger,  with  a  nice  economy  of  words, 
answered  "  Distinctly,"  and  Captain  Conrad  was 
thus  encouraged  to  proceed.  I  had  read  all  this 
before,  and  also  the  novelist's  statement  that 
before  this  he  had  not  attempted  literature  and 
had  hardly  ever  written  even  a  letter — though  I 
suppose  there  must  have  been  an  occasional 
entry  in  a  log.  I  have  certainly  been  surprised 
by  the  craftsmanship  of  Almayer's  Folly.  Not 
only  is  the  structure  good,  but  the  writing,  except 
in  one  or  two  places,  is  astonishingly  finished, 

171 


Books  in  General 

accurate,  and  restrained.  It  is  absurdly  unlike 
a  first  book.  Its  weakness,  as  it  appears  to  me, 
lies  in  the  dullness  of  the  principal  character. 
It  is  difficult  to  keep  up  one's  interest  in  a  person 
whose  main  characteristic  is  his  impotence. 
But  it  doesn't  matter  so  much  here  as  it  might, 
for  the  subsidiary  story  of  Dain  and  Nina  is  very 
fascinating,  and  the  real  hero,  after  all,  is  none 
of  the  people,  white  or  Malay,  but  the  Bornean 
river  (its  topography  is  not  always  clear  to  me) 
on  whose  overgrown  banks  they  all  live  and  the 
changes  of  which,  night  and  day,  are  described 
with  marvellous  eloquence  and  certainty. 


Peacock 

FINALLY,  after  various  minor  excursions,  I 
have  settled  down  to  the  works  of  Thomas 
Love  Peacock,  of  whom  I  had  read  noth- 
ing before  except  some  poems.  Why  ?  I  don't 
know,  but  I  think  his  name  has  vaguely  repelled 
me.  Anyhow,  I  am  thankful  now  that  I  have 
been  able  to  come  fresh  to  Peacock's  novels. 
He  has  a  few  devotees,  but  it  is  surprising  that  so 
admirable  a  writer  is  not  more  read.  Nightmare 
Abbey  and  Headlong  Hall  are  not  great  master- 
pieces, but  they  are  certainly  small  masterpieces. 
They  belong  to  the  class  of  intellectual  comedy  to 
which  Candide,  and,  in  some  measure,  Rasselas 
belong  ;  in  fact,  they  must  certainly  have  been 
172 


Peacock 

modelled  on  Candide.  They  are  burlesques  of 
oneself  and  one's  friends,  and  every  other  dis- 
cussing, theorizing  person  and  his  friends.  Char- 
latans of  all  kinds,  literary,  political,  ecclesiastical, 
and  scientific,  and  philosophers  of  all  kinds  from 
the  man  who  believes  that  upward  progress  is 
inevitable  to  the  man  who  believes  that  downward 
progress  is  undeniable,  from  the  secret  revolu- 
tionary conspirator  to  the  professional  sceptic  ; 
he  gets  them  all  in,  quintessentializes  their 
doctrines  into  exquisitely  flowing  prose,  and 
knocks  their  heads  together  with  charming  ruth- 
lessness.  Any  extract  will  illustrate  the  flow  of 
his  dialogue  : 

"  '  The  anatomy  of  the  human  stomach,'  said 
Mr.  Escot,  '  and  the  formation  of  the  teeth, 
clearly  place  man  in  the  class  of  fungivorous 
animals.' 

"  *  Many  anatomists,'  said  Mr.  Foster,  '  are 
of  a  different  opinion,  and  agree  in  discerning  the 
characteristics  of  the  carnivorous  classes.' 

"  '  I  am  no  anatomist,'  said  Mr.  Jenkinson, 
*  and  cannot  decide  where  doctors  disagree ; 
in  the  meantime,  I  conclude  that  man  is  omni- 
vorous, and  on  that  conclusion  I  act.' 

"  '  Your  conclusion  is  truly  orthodox,'  said  the 
Reverend  Doctor  Gaster ;  '  indeed,  the  loaves  and 
fishes  are  typical  of  a  mixed  diet,  and  the  prac- 
tice of  the  Church  in  all  ages  shows— 

"  '  That  it  never  loses  sight  of  the  loaves  and 
fishes,'  said  Mr.  Escot." 

173 


Books  in  General 

If  loud  asseveration  on  my  part  sends  to  Peacock 
a  few  people  who  have  not  tried  him  before,  I 
shall  feel  that  the  recent  rain  has  not  descended 


in  vain. 


Wordsworth's  Personal  Dullness 

THE  Strange  Case  of  William  Wordsworth 
is  to  me  of  perennial  interest,  and  I 
have  just  emerged  from  several  days' 
burrowing  under  Professor  C.  G.  Harper's  two 
enormous  volumes  entitled  William  Words- 
worth., His  Life,  Works,  and  Influence.  It 
is  a  conscientious  and  valuable  piece  of  work, 
very  fully  documented,  and  containing  much 
out-of-the-way  information  and  a  great  deal  of 
sensible,  if  not  always  illustrious,  criticism.  The 
information  may  perhaps  be  a  little  too  ample 
for  the  weaker  brethren.  The  map  (showing 
lakes,  mountain  ranges  (brown)  and  so  on)  of 
Wordsworth's  country  with  which  we  open  gives 
the  clue  to  Professor  Harper's  exhaustive  method. 
Every  procurable  date  of  Wordsworth's  continen- 
tal programme  is  copied  out ;  and  we  are  even 
supplied  with  the  winter  and  summer  time- 
tables of  the  Grammar  School  at  Hawkshead 
which  he  attended  and  at  which  (as  Professor 
Harper  rather  sententiously  observes)  an  educa- 
tion different  in  kind,  but  perhaps  not  inferior 
in  quality,  to  that  supplied  by  Eton  was  bestowed 


Wordsworth's  Personal  Dullness 

upon  him.  New  light  is  thrown  on  certain 
incidents  in  his  career ;  his  "  circle "  is 
elaborately  described ;  and  a  very  charming 
picture  is  given  of  his  sister  Dorothy.  But  the 
old  problem  of  Wordsworth's  defects  remains 
much  where  it  did. 

It  is  a  commonplace  that  Wordsworth  is  the  most 
uneven  of  great  poets.  Every  textbook  writer 
tells  one  that  when  he  was  inspired  he  was  a 
giant,  that  when  he  was  not  he  wrote  maundering 
doggerel,  and  that  he  himself  never  knew  when 
he  was  and  when  he  was  not  at  his  best.  The 
Idiot  Boy  has  been  held  up  to  the  ridicule  of 
generations — beyond  its  deserts  perhaps.  The 
point  was  most  forcibly  put  by  J.  K.  Stephen 
when  he  wrote  a  parody  of  Wordsworth's  "  Two 
voices  are  there,"  saying  that  one  of  the  voices 
was  that  of  the  sea,  etc.,  and  the  other  that  of 
"  an  old  half-witted  sheep."  But  a  thing  less 
frequently  faced,  and  never,  as  far  as  I  know, 
properly  explained,  is  his  personal  lack  of 
attractiveness.  Flippant  persons  may  be  met 
who  dismiss  him  as  "  a  pompous  old  dullard  "  ; 
but,  generally  speaking,  whenever  one  hears 
such  a  remark  it  comes  from  some  one  who  openly 
confesses  that  he.  cannot  stand  Wordsworth's 
poetry  at  any  price,  and  that  he  has  very  seldom 
attempted  to  read  it.  The  people  who  are  in 
difficulties  are  those  (and  I  am  among  them) 
who  agree  without  qualification  that  Wordsworth 
is  our  greatest  poet  since  Milton,  but  who  cannot 

175 


Books  in  General 

sincerely  say  that  they  are  drawn  towards  him  as 
a  man.  If  they — any  one  who  does  not  feel  like 
this  is  happy  and  I  do  not  speak  for  him — pretend 
to  be  fond  of  him  their  pretence  is  glaring. 
If  they  do  not  stick  up  for  him  they  feel  that  they 
are  being  faithless  to  a  poet  who  still  stands  in 
need  of  all  the  propagandists  he  can  get.  It  is 
not  easy  to  face  the  truth  about  him  even  in  the 
solitude  of  one's  own  chamber.  But,  by  heaven, 
he  is  a  dull  man  ! 

"  There  was  a  boy  "  (as  Wordsworth  would 
himself  begin)  who  at  one  time  used  nightly  to 
dine  in  hall  under  a  large  oil-painting  of  the  poet. 
In  this  painting  Wordsworth  was  represented 
sitting  on  a  rock  against  a  landscape  background 
which  was  an  agreeable  and  symbolical  blend 
of  wildness  and  tranquillity.  The  poet  was  clad 
in  broadcloth  ;  he  held  a  book  in  his  hand  ;  his 
face  was  smooth  and  pink  ;  and  his  mild  eye 
surveyed  the  spectator  as  though  the  latter  were 
a  lamb  about  to  receive  a  pat  of  the  hand  and  his 
blessing.  There  he  sat,  meditative  and  benevo- 
lent, while  the  soup  gave  place  to  the  fish  and  the 
fish  to  the  beef ;  and  when  one  had  drained  off 
the  last  dregs  of  one's  beer  one  went  off  still 
conscious  of  that  meditative  and  benevolent  eye. 
It  became  almost  maddening.  Every  other  great 
English  poet  had  something  fascinating  about 
him.  Even  Milton,  in  spite  of  certain  unsociable 
qualities,  had  a  certain  attractive  force,  a  touch 
of  the  virulent,  and  the  scars  of  suffering.  But 
176 


Wordsworth's  Personal  Dullness 

this  Wordsworth !  His  genuine  philanthropy 
was  unquestionable.  His  portrait  might,  one 
thought,  be  that  of  a  pioneer  of  the  Anti-Slave 
Trade  Agitation,  or  an  inventor  of  Sunday 
Schools,  or  an  endower  of  Bands  of  Hope.  But 
not  a  poet ;  oh,  not  a  poet ! 

So  it  is  with  all  his  portraits.  Professor  Harper 
gives  a  selection  of  them.  Always  the  sage  is  a 
bland  and  upright  man  ;  the  mens  conscia  recti 
typified.  But  never  a  sign  of  eloquence  or  fire ; 
of  the  magnificent  oratory  of  his  great  passages, 
of  the  music  and  profound  tenderness  which  are 
so  profuse  in  his  poetry.  Not  a  sign  of  stress ; 
not  a  mark  of  any  but  the  most  complacent 
vicarage  thought ;  no  passion,  no  enthusiasm, 
no  challenge,  and  no  response.  It  is  not  to  be 
explained  away,  as  Professor  Harper  attempts 
to  explain  it  away,  by  saying  that  the  myth  of 
"  Daddy  Wordsworth "  (as  FitzGerald  called 
him)  is  based  on  a  disproportionate  view  of  his 
life.  Professor  Harper  thinks  that  far  too  little 
attention  has  been  paid  to  his  early  revolutionary 
period,  when  the  ideals  of  the  French  Revolution 
gripped  him,  and  far  too  much  to  his  later  period 
of  orthodoxy  and  respectability.  Professor 
Harper  himself  attempts  to  redress  the  balance. 
He  gives  as  full  an  account  as  he  can  of  the  earlier 
Wordsworth  and  of  his  relations  with  Revolu- 
tionary France.  But,  as  Wordsworth's  French 
friends  would  have  said  (provided  they  were  not 
ashamed  of  using  such  a  worn-out  tag)  plus  (a 

M  1/7 


Books  in  General 

change  plus  c'est  la  m£me  chose.  The  early 
Wordsworth  may  have  been  a  different  being  ; 
but  Professor  Harper  certainly  does  not  prove 
that  he  was.  From  birth  to  death  in  this  biog- 
raphy he  appears  as  the  same  high-minded, 
staid,  sober,  solemn  monument.  He  joined  in 
the  Revolution  not  so  much  a  "  kid-glove  revo- 
lutionary "  as  a  woollen-glove  and  warm  com- 
forter revolutionary.  Had  he  stayed  in  France 
he  might  have  made  even  the  Terror  respectable. 

On  myself  and  on  others  Wordsworth's  por- 
traits and  his  biographies  always  leave  this  sort 
of  impression  :  the  impression  of  an  old  bore  to 
whom  one  would  not  be  rude  simply  and  solely 
because  one  would  not  willingly  hurt  the  feelings 
of  a  person  so  worthy.  And  then  one  goes  back 
to  his  poetry — and  his  prose — and  hears  a  voice 
of  almost  unsurpassed  grandeur  speaking  the 
deepest  of  one's  unexpressed  thoughts,  appealing 
to  and  drawing  out  all  the  divinest  powers  in 
man's  nature.  Of  his  greatness  surely  no  ra- 
tional and  unbiassed  being  could  entertain  the 
slightest  doubt.  He  is  not  so  popular  or  so 
frequently  read  as  some  poets,  and  that  is  not 
difficult  to  explain.  His  absence  of  humour, 
or  an  equivalent  vivacity,  is  not  in  itself  an 
explanation ;  but  the  accompanying  general 
absence  of  any  luxurious  appeal  to  the  senses  is. 
Hs  speaks  direct  to  the  labouring  intellect  and 
the  sensitive  heart ;  and  the  enjoyment  of  him, 
if  great,  is  usually  enjoyment  of  the  austerer 
178 


Henry  James's  Obscurity 

kind,  like  mountain-climbing.  There  is  nothing 
soft  or  enervating  or  luxurious  which  can  make 
reading  him  an  aesthetic  debauch.  He  does  not 
often  sing  to  a  tune  which  gives  one  pleasure  even 
if  one  does  not  attend  to  the  words.  Without 
being  in  the  least  obscure  he  demands  an  effort 
from  the  reader  parallel  to  his  own.  That,  at 
least  as  much  as  the  tediousness  of  many  of  his 
writings  (and  his  irritating  classification  of 
them),  is  the  reason  of  his  comparative  lack  of 
popularity.  But  .  .  . 


Henry  James's  Obscurity 

HENRY    JAMES'S    last    work    was    his 
essay  on  Rupert  Brooke,  written  as  an 
introduction   to  Letters  from  America. 
Mr.  James's  essay  is  a  personal  appreciation,  and 
not  in  any  way  a  biographical  memoir.     Such  a 
memoir,    by    another    hand,    will    follow.     Mr. 
James  left  unfinished  two  novels,  and  a  third 
volume  of  the  series  begun  with  A  Small  Boy 
and  Others  and  Notes  of  a  Son  and  Brother. 

Presumably  the  public  (which  might  well  make 
a  start  with  the  short  stories  of  which  Mr.  Seeker 
has  already  published  eight  half-crown  volumes, 
very  pleasant  to  the  eye)  will  at  last  begin  to  buy 
James's  novels.  They  have  certainly  not  bought 
them  in  the  past.  He  was,  in  critical  circles, 

179 


Books  in  General 

almost  universally  recognized  as  one  of  the  three 
or  four  greatest  of  English  writers  living  a  week 
ago.  But  some  of  his  books  had  not  even  gone 
into  a  second  edition.  He  was  intermittently 
talked  about  in  the  Press.  Fifteen  years  or  so 
ago  he  had  a  boom  of  the  sort ;  then  there  was  a 
period  of  comparative  newspaper  obscurity  ;  in 
the  last  three  or  four  years  he  suddenly  and 
silently,  like  a  star  appearing  from  behind  a 
cloud,  took  his  unchallenged  place  in  the  firma- 
ment as  one  of  the  established  great.  But  he  was 
not  widely  read.  Daisy  Miller,  ever  so  many 
years  ago,  had  a  fairly  general  success  ;  The 
Golden  Bowl,  also,  I  should  think,  sold  well. 
But  many  people  who  paid  lip  homage  to  him 
were  very  unfamiliar  with  his  work. 

In  no  case  would  a  man  with  his  interests,  his 
approach,  his  subtlety  and  avoidance  of  the 
grosser  excitements,  his  restraint  and  delicacy, 
have  sold  by  the  hundred  thousand.  But  his 
appeal  was  still  further  limited  by  the  legend 
of  his  style.  I  remember  reading  an  old  novel 
written  in  the  days  when  Robert  Browning  was 
an  Incomprehensible  studied  by  a  Cult.  The 
heroine  of  it  gave  herself  away  rather  by  remark- 
ing, "  Oh,  Mr.  Browning  !  I've  never  been  able 
to  understand  a  single  thing  that  he  has  written. 
That  is  why  I  have  never  tried."  One  feels 
that  there  were  persons  who  were  in  the  same 
position  as  towards  Henry  James.  They  had 
heard  that  he  was  a  hard  nut  to  crack  ;  they  had 
1 80 


Henry  James's  Obscurity 

seen  perhaps — it  was  always  a  great  temptation 
to  a  reviewer  to  extract — specimens  of  his  more 
elaborate  discursions,  complicated  arabesques  of 
sentences,  parenthesis  after  parenthesis  wander- 
ing from  comma  to  comma  like  barbed  wire 
tangled  around  its  supports.  And  they  thought 
therefore  that  he  was  an  obscure  eclectic  as 
difficult  as  Jacob  Behmen  or  Swedenborg  and 
lacking  their  excuse  of  religious  inspiration. 
Certainly  he  was  sometimes  difficult.  But  it 
was  a  unique  kind  of  obscurity.  There  is  an 
obscurity  produced  when  a  man,  eagerly  tum- 
bling along  an  argument,  writes  down  only  a 
sort  of  fitful  shorthand,  a  language  which  leaves 
things  out  and  which  resembles  the  stray  pieces 
of  disconnected  paper  in  gutter  or  hedge  which 
merely  indicate  the  course  that  the  runner  has 
taken.  There  is  another  and  commoner  kind  of 
obscurity  of  speech  which  derives  from  mistiness 
of  mind  ;  for  a  man  cannot  write  clearly  down 
what  he  does  not  clearly  think.  And  there  is  a 
kind  of  obscurity  which  is  produced  by  mere 
inaptitude  for  writing  :  the  awkwardness  of  the 
cow  handling  a  rifle.  James's  obscurity  was  the 
direct  product  of  his  passion  for  clarity.  He 
detested  the  slipshod  sentence  which,  compact 
as  it  may  look  as  a  piece  of  grammar,  is  a 
mere  pot-shot  as  a  piece  of  representation.  He 
wanted  to  make  no  statement  which  did  not 
embody  precisely  what  he  wanted  to  say ;  what, 
that  is  to  say,  he  saw  as  Truth.  He  would 
have  taken,  for  example,  that  last  sentence  of 


Books  in  General 

mine  and,  endeavouring  to  give  it  a  more  exact 
shape,  have  made  of  it  something  like  the  fol- 
lowing : 

"  He  wanted,  when,  that  is,  he  experienced 
anything  so  definite  or,  shall  we  put  it,  so  posi- 
tively energetic,  as  a  want,  to  make  no  statement, 
none  at  any  rate  which  might  be  taken  by  even 
the  least  perceptive  of  his  hearers  as  a  delivered, 
and,  as  it  were,  final  testimony  of  his  reaction 
to  things  as  he  saw  them,  which  did  not  precisely 
embody  what  he  wanted  (when,  once  more,  he 
coherently  desired  anything,  as  we  have  it, 
"  higher  "  than  the  elementary  physical)  to  say  ; 
what,  that  is  to  say,  he  saw,  at  the  moment  of 
speech,  be  it  understood,  for  the  eye  of  the 
watcher  changes,  as  what,  in  the  absence  of  a 
happier  name,  it  has  pleased  us  to  ennoble  with 
the  majestic  name  of  Truth." 

I  don't  suggest  that  I  myself  have  added  any- 
thing to  my  own  sentence  by  this  addition  of  the 
pomp  and  circumstance  of  parenthesis  and 
circumlocution.  I  have  merely  turned  a  short 
platitude  into  a  long  one.  But  it  may  serve  to 
show  the  method  by  which  Henry  James  arrived 
at  his  more  tortuous  pages.  The  method  has 
its  disadvantages.  The  man  who  employs  it  is 
sometimes  like  a  man  working  with  a  pickaxe 
in  a  cave.  The  more  he  digs  away  the  larger  the 
unattacked  expanse  which  invites  his  strength  ; 
or,  as  one  might  say,  the  bigger  the  hole  he  is  in. 
182 


Henry  James's  Obscurity 

But  when  this  method  is  employed  by  a  man 
with  the  analytical  powers,  the  sensitiveness  to 
fine  shades,  material  and  spiritual,  of  Henry 
James,  the  result  is  a  "  product "  (the  kind  of 
word  that  James  would  always  have  put  in 
actual  or  implied  inverted  commas)  which  never 
stales  and  from  which  one  gets  more  and  more 
enjoyment  each  time  one  reads.  In  the  last 
resort  novels  live  by  the  richness  of  their  detail ; 
and  James's  detail  is  exquisite  and  inexhaustible. 

Few  modern  writers  have  exercised  so  strong 
an  influence  over  those  who  have  surrendered 
themselves  to  him.  He  is,  I  should  say,  more 
infectious  than  any  writer  since  (what  a  strange 
collocation  ! )  Lord  Macaulay.  A  man  with  a 
formed  style  can  usually  read  and  enjoy  Carlyle, 
Jeremy  Taylor,  de  Quincey,  or  George  Meredith 
without  showing  the  least  tendency  (unless  de- 
liberate) to  imitate  them.  But  when  one  has 
(I  don't  speak  only  for  myself)  been  reading 
James  one  finds  for  a  time  that  one  is  tempted  to 
write  even  one's  private  letters  in  a  style  which 
shows  plainly  that  one  has  set  him  as  a  seal  upon 
one's  arm.  Even  now,  when  I  am  merely 
thinking  about  him,  I  feel  the  pressure  of  that 
stern  artistic  conscience,  and  can  only  with  an 
effort  resist  the  demand  that  I  should  guard 
myself  here,  qualify  myself  here,  and  elucidate 
myself  there.  He  was  irresistible,  like  one  of 
those  stammerers  or  persons  with  other  attractive 
or  unattractive  vocal  idiosyncrasies  whom  one 


Books  in  General 

cannot  help  imitating  when  one  is  with  them. 
A  person  of  any  force  gets  through  this  and  the 
permanent  effect  of  a  subjugation  to  James  was 
always  good.  A  too  marked  echo  of  him  would 
be  painful :  but  his  example  was  salutary.  It 
may  be  possible  to  grumble  with  him  for  this  and 
that.  He  did  write  mainly  about  persons  with 
incomes  (though  these  also  are  God's  creatures)  ; 
he  did  occasionally  behave  (as  Mr.  Wells  very 
wittily  put  it)  like  a  hippopotamus  picking  up  a 
pea  ;  and  he  did  annoy  some  enthusiasts  by  re- 
fusing to  place  his  pen  habitually  at  the  service 
of  the  Great  Forces  of  Our  Time  and  other  things 
whose  capital  importance  is  of  custom  indicated 
by  capital  letters.  But  in  an  age  of  sloppy 
writing  he  stood  for  accuracy  of  craftsmanship ; 
and  even  men  whose  subjects  are  Invisible 
Exports  or  the  Parthenogenesis  of  Plants  might 
learn  from  him  how  to  use  to  more  advantage 
their  intellects  and  their  pens. 


The  "Ring"  in  the  Bookselling 
Trade 

A  BIBLIOPHILE  writes  the  following  com- 
plaint :  "  At  the  recent  sale  of  Swinburne's 
library,  certain  lots,  chiefly  signed  pre- 
sentation   copies,    fetched    extravagantly    high 
prices.     But  the  outsider  is  generally  puzzled  at 


The  "  Ring"  in  the  Bookselling  Trade 

the  extreme  variation  in  the  prices,  a  variation 
which  passing  fashions  in  taste  do  not  explain. 
There  is  an  explanation,  as  one  would-be  pur- 
chaser was  made  somewhat  rudely  aware.  He 
wanted  a  book  by  a  modern  poet,  a  poet  of 
delicate  talent  and  little  recognition  ;  and  he 
asked  a  bookseller  to  bid  for  the  lot.  He  was 
willing  to  spend  between  ten  and  thirteen 
shillings  on  it.  The  agent  who  was  to  bid 
arrived  late,  and  another  bookseller  bought  the 
lot  for  five  shillings.  So  the  would-be  purchaser 
asked  his  bookseller  to  approach  the  man  who  had 
bought  the  lot,  and  find  out  if  he  would  sell  it. 
The  book  was  cheap  at  five  and  would  be  rather 
dear  at  ten  shillings.  When  approached,  the 
purchaser  informed  his  colleague  that  '  he  had 
had  to  pay  a  good  deal  more  for  the  lot  than  the 
price  given  in  the  rooms,  and  that  he  could  not 
part  with  it  for  less  than  eighteen  shillings.' 
Such  are  the  blessings  of  the  '  ring  '  at  Sotheby's. 

"  The  ring  consists  of  some  of  the  largest  and 
best-known  members  of  the  bookselling  trade — 
all  honest  men — and  their  plan  is  this  :  they 
never  bid  against  each  other,  except  for  show ; 
lots  go  at  small  prices,  thus  robbing  owners  and 
executors  of  their  right  profit ;  and  subsequently 
these  cheap  lots  are  put  up  again  and  resold 
among  the  members  of  the  ring.  The  auc- 
tioneers can,  of  course,  do  nothing  to  stop  the 
practice — and  it  is  as  legal  as  it  is  dishonourable. 
At  times  an  outsider  with  a  big  banking  account 


Books  in  General 

gives  the  ring  a  good  deal  of  trouble  ;  but  it  has 
survived  all  private  attacks,  and  is  likely  to — 
though  a  private  buyer  with  a  confident  manner 
and  a  quick  power  of  decision  can  occasionally 
get  a  great  deal  of  amusement  by  running  lots 
up,  and  so  forcing  the  ring  to  pay  exorbitant 
prices  for  things  they  do  not  want." 

It  is  true.  There  exists  among  the  second-hand 
booksellers  precisely  such  a  ring  as  gave  rise  to 
so  much  discussion  a  few  years  ago  when  the 
scandal  of  the  art-dealers'  "  knock-out "  was 
widely  discussed.  For  some  time  I  myself  have 
been  trying  to  get  information  about  it.  But 
it  is  not  easy.  You  can  find  out  from  booksellers 
who  are  not  in  the  ring  (few  of  these  lone  wolves 
are  important)  who  the  booksellers  are  who  are 
in  the  ring,  but  that  is  about  all.  But  the  method 
is  simple.  The  attendance  at  book  sales  is  not 
large.  Private  collectors  are  lazy  people  ;  it  is 
not  now  fashionable — as  it  was  in  the  Duke  of 
Roxburghe's  day — for  the  Old  Nobility  to 
crowd  the  salerooms,  bidding  desperately  amid 
groans  of  anguish  and  cheers  of  triumph.  The 
result  is  that  very  often  one  will  attend  a  sale  and 
be  the  only  private  person  there,  and  it  is  a 
matter  of  chance  (especially  when  the  sale  is  a 
comparatively  small  one)  whether  any  one  at  all 
is  there  except  the  members  of  the  ring.  The 
ring,  -pro  forma,  will  run  a  book  up  to  about  a 
third  of  its  value  and  leave  it  at  that.  At  the 
close  of  the  proceedings  its  members  will  adjourn 
1 86 


The  "  Ring  "  in  the  Bookselling  Trade 

somewhere — I  don't  know  where,  but  let  us  say 
a  back  room  in  the  Charing  Cross  Road — and 
hold  a  "  knock-out  "  auction  of  the  books  they 
have  bought.  The  difference  between  the  sums 
paid  here  and  the  sums  paid  at  Sotheby's  or 
Hodgson's  will  be  pooled  and  divided,  so  as  to 
equalize  the  spoil ;  and  the  owners  of  the  libraries 
sold  will  have  got  only,  perhaps,  a  half  of  what 
they  really  ought  to  have  got  considering  the 
prices  that  the  ultimate  purchasers  are  willing  to 
pay. 

But  I  don't  see  what  is  to  be  done  about  it. 
As  my  correspondent  remarks,  the  auctioneers 
can't  stop  it.  They  also  must  suffer  as  their 
work  is  done  on  a  commission  basis.  It  must  not 
be  assumed  that  all  the  booksellers  like  the 
system,  but  the  minority  cannot  help  themselves. 
I  remember  that  one  very  well  known  bookseller, 
now  dead,  tried  for  several  years  to  keep  out  of 
it ;  but  in  the  end,  by  co-ordinated  bidding 
against  him,  he  was  forced  in.  There  the  thing 
is  ;  the  dealers  find  it  profitable  ;  it  is  not  easy 
to  keep  out  of  it  unless  you  are  a  prince  of  the 
trade,  with  rich  customers  and  great  resources, 
or  a  person  with  special  knowledge  who  is  after  a 
special  kind  of  book  and  will  be  let  alone  ;  and 
there  is  no  short  cut  to  reform.  How  can  Parlia- 
ment interfere  ?  If  one  dealer  who  buys  a 
book  can  sell  it  to  another  after  the  sale,  how 
can  six  or  a  dozen  dealers  be  prevented  from 
exchanging  their  purchases  similarly.  It  would 

187 


Books  in  General 

be  all  very  well  to  make  the  "  knock-out  "  illegal, 
but  how  many  does  it  take  to  make  a  ring  and 
how  many  detectives  could  be  spared  ?  The 
only  conceivable  remedy  is  for  persons  who 
habitually  buy  old  books  to  make  a  point  (when 
the  war  is  over  and  they  are  released  from  their 
present  occupations)  of  turning  up  at  the  sale- 
rooms and  bidding  against  the  pros.  Even  at 
that  the  remedy  would  only  be  efficacious  as 
long  as  it  was  actively  applied.  It  might  be 
worth  a  guinea  a  box,  but  you  would  have  to  take 
a  box  every  day  ;  there  would  be  no  permanent 
cure.  Directly  the  strangers  slacked  off  again 
the  ring  and  the  "  knock-out "  would  revive, 
and  my  unfortunate  friend  (for  I  presume  that 
the  disconsolate  buyer  he  refers  to  is  himself) 
would  have  once  more  to  pay  for  his  books  much 
more  than  the  price  recorded  at  the  rooms. 
"  There  is  no  cure  for  this  disease,"  as  Mr. 
Belloc's  poem  puts  it,  unless  auction-frequenting 
again  becomes  a  popular  form  of  amusement. 

But,  if  I  may  digress,  I  must  say  that,  for 
persons  of  a  bookish  turn  of  mind,  there  is  nothing 
more  amusing  than  an  occasional  visit  to  Welling- 
ton Street  or  Chancery  Lane.  I  shouldn't  care 
to  do  it  every  day ;  the  combined  mustiness  of 
books  and  booksellers  is  a  bit  overpowering. 
But  it  is  exciting  to  bid  occasionally,  and  the 
books  that  come  into  the  London  auction-rooms 
are  of  such  quality  that  sometimes  you  might 
almost  as  well  go  to  Sotheby's  as  to  the  Ex- 
188 


The  "  Ring  "  in  the  Bookselling  Trade 

hibition  Rooms  (now  shut  up  so  as  to  pay  for 
two  minutes  of  the  war)  of  the  British  Museum. 
The  bindings  that  great  collectors  put  on  their 
books  are  in  themselves  wonderful.  And  the 
booksellers,  rich  and  poor,  glossy  and  seedy,  as 
they  nod  to  the  rostrum  and  paw  the  goods,  are  a 
sight  to  which  only  Balzac  could  do  justice. 
They  all  wear  looks  of  settled  gloom  as  though 
they  were  on  the  verge  of  bankruptcy  ;  they  all 
(if  one  speaks  to  them)  swear  that  "  it  is  im- 
possible to  get  anything  to-day  as  everything  is 
going  so  dear " ;  and  they  all  have  a  sovereign 
indifference  to  everything  but  the  commercial 
value  of  the  books  they  deal  in.  I  say  all : 
there  are  exceptions ;  but  the  crowd  as  a  whole  is 
utterly  depressed  and  completely  free  from  the 
remotest  concern  with  literature.  But  possibly 
when  they  get  in  that  back  room  somewhere 
and  assess  the  margin  between  what  executors 
have  got  for  books  and  what  they  ought  to  have 
got  for  them,  their  morose  countenances  may 
brighten.  For  all  I  know,  every  "  knock-out " 
auction  may  end  with  the  circulation  of  the 
punch-bowl,  jolly  songs,  and  toasts  to  the 
damnation  of  all  the  idiots  who  waste  their 
money  on  rotten  old  books  unfit  to  read  and 
thereby  keep  in  affluence  a  set  of  honest  men  who 
read  the  Daily  Mail  in  the  morning  and  never  a 
line  for  the  rest  of  the  day. 


189 


Books  in  General 


Music-Hall  Songs 

MR.  WILLIAM  ARCHER  contributes  to 
the  Fortnightly  an  attack  on  the  music- 
hall.  He  says  that  it  is  the  home  of 
vulgarity  and  inanity ;  that  the  audiences,  as  a 
rule,  would  enjoy  much  better  stuff  than  they 
are  given  ;  and  that  "  the  music-hall  seems  to 
have  killed  a  genuine  vein  of  lyric  faculty  in  the 
English  people."  With  all  that  I  don't  think 
that  any  one  but  a  poseur  could  disagree.  Mr. 
Archer  makes  an  extraordinary  slip  when  he 
puts  forward  Sally  in  our  Alley  as  a  folk-product 
of  which  neither  the  composer  nor  the  author  is 
known  to  fame  :  both  words  and  music  being  by 
Henry  Carey,  who  was  scarcely  an  obscure  person 
in  his  day  and  is  not  entirely  forgotten  now.  He 
concludes,  too,  with  a  somewhat  vague  sugges- 
tion of  a  remedy  which  has  no  bearing  whatever 
upon  the  improvement  of  music-hall  songs,  and 
which  one  suspects  to  spring  from  his  perennial 
desire  to  induce  the  public  to  go  and  see  Ibsen. 
But  his  case  as  a  whole  is  irrefutable.  The 
nation's  songs  since  the  industrial  revolution 
have  been  immeasurably  worse  than  at  any  other 
time  in  its  history.  They  are  almost  all  com- 
mercial products  manufactured  by  half-wits. 

Mr.  Archer's  case  being  so  sound,  it  is  all  the 
more  a  pity  that  he  overdoes  it  It  is  true  that 
190 


Music-Hall  Songs 

almost  all  these  songs  are  vile  rubbish,  and  that 
the  songs  of  the  Villikins  and  his  Dinah  and 
Champagne  Charlie  periods  were  even  more 
fatuous  than  those  of  the  present  day.  But  it  is 
exaggeration  to  say  that 

"  what  is  certain  is  that  the  whole  music-hall 
movement  has  produced  not  one — literally  not 
one — piece  of  verse  that  can  rank  as  poetry  of  the 
humblest  type,  or  even  as  a  really  clever  bit  of 
comic  rhyming," 

for  such  songs  turn  up  fairly  frequently.  Possibly 
Mr.  Archer's  horror  of  the  "  red-nosed  comedian  " 
prevents  him  from  ever  listening  to  his  words  : 
certainly  one  gets  from  Mr.  Archer's  article  the 
impression  that  the  critic  is  only  acquainted  with 
a  few  of  the  most  famous  of  music-hall  songs. 
But  although  I  heartily  support  his  general  case 
and  would  willingly  consent  to  the  execution  of 
all  music-hall  managers  and  versifiers  and  most 
music-hall  artists,  I  must  protest  that  "  really 
clever  bits  of  comic  rhyming "  do  turn  up 
occasionally. 

I  wish  I  had  a  better  verbal  memory.  But  I 
can  at  least  refer  Mr.  Archer  to  a  few  songs  of 
which,  if  he  cares  to  spend  a  month  in  the 
Museum  with  old  volumes  of  Francis,  Day  and 
Hunter's  song-books  and  other  collections,  he  can 
find  the  full  words.  For  instance,  there  is  Mr. 
Harry  Lauder's  It's  Nice  to  get  up  in  the  Morning. 

191 


Books  in  General 

As  I  remember  them  (and  here  and  elsewhere  I 
don't  guarantee  that  my  quotations  are  literally 
accurate)  the  words  of  the  chorus  are  : 

Oh,  it's  nice  to  get  up  in  the  morning  when  the  sun 
begins  to  shine, 

At  four  or  Jive  or  six  o'clock  in  the  good  old  summer 
time  ; 

But  when  the  snow  is  falling,  and  it's  murky  over- 
head, 

It's  nice  to  get  up  in  the  morning — but  it's  nicer 
to  stay  in  bed. 

Of  course  the  tune  helped  it.  But  it  is  quite  well 
turned  and  it  springs  clean  out  of  popular  ex- 
perience. It  is  folk-poetry  even  if  the  folk  didn't 
write  it.  It  is  not  the  folk-poetry  of  the  seven- 
teenth century,  but  it  is  distinctly  the  folk- 
poetry  of  modern  commercial  and  urban  England. 
We  sat  upon  the  Baby  on  the  Shore  I'm  not  sure 
about ;  it  didn't,  I  suspect,  have  a  music-hall 
origin,  though  I  do  not  know.  But  A  Little  Bit 
off  the  Top  was  quite  comic  in  places  ;  so  were 
The  Four  Horse  Charabanc,  Right  in  the  Middle 
of  the  Road,  Whitewash,  and  'E  dunno  where  'e 
are.  I  wish  I  could  recall  the  words  of  the  song 
which  had  a  chorus  beginning  : 

More  work  for  the  undertaker, 

Another  little  job  for  the  tombstone-maker  ; 

but  even  that  high-spirited  couplet  shows  their 
192 


Music-Hail  Songs 

quality.  These  mock-tragic  songs  are  often 
quite  good.  The  best  known  was  His  Day's 
Work  was  done,  which  was  undeniably  a  comic 
conception  well  carried  out.  Did  Mr.  Archer  ever 
hear  If  it  wasn't  for  the  Houses  in  Between  ? 
The  one  fragment  that  sticks  in  my  mind  both 
dates  it  and  shows  that  it  was  a  "  clever  bit  of 
comic  rhyming  "  : 

//  the  weather  had  been  finer 
You'd  have  seen  the  war  in  China — 
//  it  wasn't  for  the  Houses  in  Between. 

And  what  about  Waiting  at  the  Church  ?  — 

There  was  I  waiting  at  the  church. 

Waiting  at  the  church. 

When  I  found  he'd  left  me  in  the  lurch, 

Lor' ,  how  it  did  upset  me  ! 

Then  he  sent  me  round  a  little  note, 

Just  a  little  note, 

This  is  what  he  wrote  : 

"  Can't  get  away  to  marry  you  to-day — 

My  wife  won't  let  me." 

That  seems  to  me  a  well-calculated  chorus,  and 
the  clinch  of  the  last  two  lines  couldn't  be  beaten. 
But  perhaps  the  austere  Mr.  Archer  would  think 
it  debasing  on  the  grounds  that  it  led  the  audience 
to  think  lightly  of  bigamy. 

Bigamy  is  one  of  the  chief  comic-song  subjects. 
Vermin  in  oiv's  bed,  drunkenness,  and  the  food 

N  193 


Books  in  General 

in  boarding-houses  are  the  others.  The  "  booze  " 
songs  are  not,  as  a  rule,  as  good  as  they  should  be. 
The  only  one  I  remember  that  was  at  all  neat  ran 
something  like : 

First  she  had  some  marmalade, 

And  then  she  had  some  jam. 
Then  some  dozen  of  oysters 

And  then  a  plate  of  ham, 
A  lobster  and  a  crab  or  two 

And  a  pint  of  bottled  beer, 
A  little  gin  hot  to  settle  the  lot 

— And  that's  what  made  her  queer. 

I  certainly  don't  suggest  that  any  of  the 
songs  I  have  quoted — and  I'm  certain  that 
consultation  with  a  few  expert  friends,  now 
in  Flanders,  would  bring  better  ones  to  light 
— are  masterpieces.  But  I  do  think  they  are 
quite  comic  verse,  and  that  if  all  music-hall 
songs  were  as  well  turned  there  would  not  be 
much  ground  for  complaint.  One  does,  that  is, 
laugh  occasionally  at  a  music-hall,  in  spite  of  Mr. 
Archer.  But,  unhappily,  of  ninety-nine  songs 
out  of  a  hundred  the  words  are  too  abysmal  for 
anything,  and  the  serious  ones  are  almost  in- 
variably imbecile.  I  wonder,  by  the  way, 
whether  the  music-hall  authorities  ever  try  to 
induce  competent  comic  rhymers,  known  in 
other  spheres,  to  turn  out  songs  for  them  ? 
Probably  not ;  they  think  the  words  don't  matter. 
That  they  are  mistaken  (though  the  tunes  count 
194 


More  Music-Hall  Songs 

for  most)  is  shown  by  the  way  that  a  song  with 
good  words  succeeds  with  the  audience.  Even 
one  ingenious  line  will  often  bring  the  house  down. 
I  remember  the  old  song  /  can't  change  it. 
There  was  a  stanza  about  a  bride  who  appalled 
her  bridegroom  by  taking  herself  to  pieces, 
removing  a  wig,  a  glass  eye,  a  wooden  arm,  two 
wooden  legs,  etc.  In  the  chorus  the  narrator 
suddenly  described  her  as  "  'Arf  a  woman  and 
'arf  a  tree,"  and  this  admirable  if  unrefined  trope 
was  the  most  successful  thing  of  the  year.  But 
as  I  say,  I  largely  agree  with  Mr.  Archer.  If 
only  they  would  let  me  smoke  in  theatres  I 
would  never  go  near  a  music-hall  again  until  the 
programmes  were  improved,  and  I  imagine  many 
other  people  are  in  the  same  boat. 


More  Music-Hall  Songs 

HOW  little  do  we  know  the  consequences 
of  our  acts.  "  I  say  there  is  not  a  red 
Indian,  hunting  by  Lake  Winnipic, 
can  quarrel  with  his  squaw,  but  the  whole  world 
must  smart  for  it :  will  not  the  price  of  beaver 
rise  ?  It  is  a  mathematical  fact  that  the  casting 
of  this  pebble  from  my  hand  alters  the  centre 
of  gravity  of  the  Universe."  That  was  Car- 
lyle's  way  of  putting  it.  Somebody  wrote  a 
book  of  theatrical  reminiscences  :  the  book  set 
Mr.  William  Archer  pondering  on  the  fatuity  of 


Books  in  General 

music-halls ;  Mr.  Archer's  article  made  me  try  to 
remember  comic  fragments  of  music-hall  songs  ; 
and  my  observations  would  appear,  judging  from 
the  quantities  of  correspondence  they  have 
produced,  to  have  tempted  whole  families  to 
spend  their  evenings  trying  to  recall  the  popular 
choruses  of  their  youth. 

Numbers  of  them  seem  to  have  better  memories 
than  mine.  Whole  verses  of  More  Work  for  the 
Undertaker  (I  think  it  was  Mr.  Dunville's  song) 
reach  me.  The  scheme  may  be  illustrated  by 
one  stanza  : 

Sammy  Snoozer  laboured  on  the  railway  ; 

His  work  he  was  very  clever  at ! 

Sammy  one  day  was  a-polishing  the  metals 

With  a  lump  of  mouldy  fat. 

Up  come  a  runaway  engine, 

Sammy  stood  upon  the  track  ; 

He  held  out  his  arms,  for  he  firmly  believed 

He  could  push  that  locomotive  back. 

(The  drum  :  Boom  !  !) 
(Chorus) 

More  work  for  the  undertaker. 

Another  little  job  for  the  tombstone-maker  ; 

At  the  local  cemetery  they've 

Been  very  very  busy  with  a  brand-new  grave, 

For  Snoozer* 's 

Snuffed  it ! 

I  am  afraid  that  I  should  have  to  grant  Mr. 
196 


More  Music-Hail  Songs 

Archer  the  verse  :  the  second  line,  especially, 
cannot  be  called  a  model  of  good  craftsmanship. 
But  the  chorus  is  very  neat.  It  was  varied  with 
each  verse.  Another  correspondent's  specimen 
finishes  with  "  For  Frederick's  fragments." 

I  must  bow  to  the  correspondent  who  suggests 
that  the  success  of  the  song  about  the  bride  with 
artificial  limbs  was  at  least  as  much  due  to  lines 
he  quotes  as  it  was  to  "  'Arf  a  woman  and  'arf  a 
tree."  His  lines  are  : 

I  can't  change  her  ! 

No  matter  how  I  try, 

But  ril  chop  her  up  for  firewood 

In  the  sweet  by-and-by. 

An  equally  impolite  chorus  is  that  of  Herbert 
Campbell's  'Blige  a  Lady  which  another  corre- 
spondent sends.  The  conductor,  on  a  rainy  day, 
asked  the  inside  males  to  give  up  a  seat  to  a  lady 
and  go  outside,  and  the  reply  was  on  the  lines  of 

Said  I,  "  Old  chap,  she  may  have  my  lap, 
But  I  don't  get  wet  for  her" 

That  is  very  typical  music-hall ;  and  it  will  be 
observed  that  it  gets  its  effect  by  sticking  close, 
as  Wordsworth  advised,  to  the  natural  phrase- 
ology and  sequence  of  everyday  speech. 

Mr.  Albert  Chevalier,  I  admit,  I  did  not 
mention.  He  has  not  been  primarily  a  music- 

197 


Books  in  General 

hall  artist,  and  Mr.  Archer  himself  made  an 
exception  of  his  songs.  Some  of  Mr.  Gus  Elen's 
certainly  might  be  quoted :  e.g.  'E  dunno 
where  V  are  and  Whafs  the  Use  of  looking  out 
for  Work  ?  I  am  afraid  that  I  am  not  sufficiently 
well  informed  to  answer  questions  as  to  the 
sources  of  supply  of  modern  music-hall  songs. 
The  only  thing  I  have  observed  is  that  large 
numbers  of  the  worst  ones  are  composed  by 
persons  whose  names  suggest  that  the  use  of  the 
English  language  is  with  them  rather  an  acquired 
than  an  inherited  characteristic.  How  far  the 
practice  prevails  of  a  particular  star  employing  a 
tame  author  to  write  the  words  of  all  his  songs 
for  him  I  do  not  know.  I  have  never  consciously 
met  a  writer  of  music-hall  songs,  though  I  did 
know  one  man  who  made  two  attempts  to  produce 
what  he  thought  the  right  sort  of  commodity. 
He  sent  them  to  an  entrepreneur,  but  all  his  wit 
was  wasted.  The  chorus  of  one  song  mentioned 
a  well-known  and  much-advertised  comestible  : 
this  wouldn't  do,  as  all  the  vendors  of  similar 
articles  would  be  jealous  and,  possibly,  refuse  to 
advertise  any  more  on  the  programme.  In  the 
other  song  the  author  had  had  the  misfortune  to 
hit  upon  an  idea  which  had  been  used  before. 
His  refrain  was : 

And  when  the  pie  was  opened 
The  birds  began  to  sing. 

But  there  was  an  old  song  with  the  same  tail  to  it. 
It  was  a  song  about  a  pigeon-pie  which  was  no 
198 


More  Music-Hail  Songs 

better  than  it  should  be.  This  reminds  me  that 
in  tabulating  favourite  music-hall  subjects  one 
should  certainly  have  mentioned  bad  smells. 
Throughout  history  any  reference  to  unpleasant 
smells  has  moved  the  Englishman  to  roars  of 
laughter.  Perhaps  it  is  because  we  so  thoroughly 
dislike  them.  I  don't  think  that  these  odours 
take  all  nations  in  quite  the  same  way  :  but 
travellers  on  the  Continent  are  sometimes  tempted 
to  think  that  most  nations  do  not  notice  them  so 
much  as  we  do. 

The  music-hall  versifier,  usually  feeble  when 
funny,  is  certainly  at  his  worst  when  serious. 
Such  of  the  war-songs  as  I  have  heard  are  dread- 
ful. Perhaps  those  I  have  not  heard  are  better. 
Early  in  the  war  I  was  looking  into  a  music-shop 
window  in  Upper  Shaftesbury  Avenue  and  saw 
two  typical  titles.  One  was  Only  a  Bit  of  Khaki 
that  Daddy  wore  at  Mons,  and  the  other  was 
The  Little  Irish  Red  Cross  Nurse.  I  did  not  dare 
to  buy  them,  but  I  could  not  help  admiring  the 
ingenuity  of  the  author  of  the  second  who  had 
managed  to  work  the  perennial  Irish  Girl  theme 
so  neatly  into  the  new  subject.  All  music-hall 
poets  seem  to  be  obsessed  by  Irish  girls.  They 
will  even  work  them  into  translations  of  foreign 
songs  which  do  not  mention  them.  Five  or  six 
years  ago  a  German  music-hall  song  which  had 
nothing  whatever  to  do  with  Irish  girls  was  im- 
ported and  became  very  popular  here.  The 
ideas  of  the  original  were  largely  preserved, 

199 


Books  in  General 

but  an  Irish  girl  had  to  be  stuck  in.  But  quo, 
Musa,  tendis  ?  If  I  go  on  like  this  I  shall  end  by 
agreeing  with  Mr.  Archer. 


Utopias 

I   SAW  recently  a  very  entertaining  article  by 
Mr.  Walter  Lippman  in  the   New  Republic 
on   the  subject  of  Utopias.     Mr.  Lippman 
raised  the  question  of  why  it  was  Utopias  had 
gone  out  of  fashion.     Since  Mr.  Wells  wrote  his 
Modern  Utopia  no  one  has  had  a  shot. 

It  is,  of  course,  not  the  longest  period  in  human 
history  which  has  gone  without  a  new  Utopia. 
As  far  as  I  know,  nothing  of  the  sort  was  con- 
structed between  the  time  of  Plato  and  that  of 
Sir  Thomas  More.  Reasons  might,  no  doubt, 
be  discovered  for  this  long  lapse.  The  Romans 
were  too  realistic  to  bother  about  such  things, 
and  in  the  Middle  Ages  the  only  people  who  could 
write  were  priests,  and  they  probably  did  not 
dare  outline  any  other  perfect  society  than  that 
of  the  New  Jerusalem.  In  fact,  Utopias  of  any 
merit  have  until  recently  always  been  produced 
at  long  intervals  :  with  the  exception  of  Bacon's 
New  Atlantis  and  Campanella's  City  of  the  Sun, 
which  were,  I  think,  published  in  the  same  year. 
The  nineteenth  century  must  have  produced 
more  imaginary  states  of  this  kind  than  all  its 
200 


Utopias 

predecessors  put  together.  And  if  we  stop  con- 
structing Utopias,  this  will  happen  not  because 
we  have  ceased  to  hanker  after  them,  but  because 
the  complexities  of  civilization  have  become  too 
unmanageable  to  handle.  When  the  structures 
of  society  and  industry  were  comparatively 
simple,  a  man  could  invent  an  ideal  state  which 
would  not  look  too  far  removed  from  the  states 
he  knew.  We  can  still  go  on  dreaming  of  little 
paradises,  such  as  that  in  Morris's  News  from 
Nowhere  ;  but  what  it  is  difficult  to  do  is  to 
describe  fully  an  imaginary  community  which  is 
world-wide,  or,  at  any  rate,  in  contact  with  the 
whole  world,  which  has  to  face  the  problems  of 
race,  and  which  has  to  take  over  from  existing 
civilization  our  highly  developed  methods  of 
manufacture  and  distribution  of  labour.  Mr. 
Wells  did  try  to  depict  a  state  that  might  grow 
out  of  the  existing  order  ;  but  his  picture  is 
notably  less  complete  than  those  of  older  writers. 
He  could  only  hope  to  produce  his  effect  by  giving 
us  a  series  of  cinema  glimpses  of  various  aspects 
of  life.  Personally,  I  doubt  whether  any  one 
else  will  even  attempt  the  job. 

One  could  wish  that  somebody  would  make  a 
thorough  study  of  the  principal  Utopias  that  the 
mind  of  man  has  conceived.  Such  a  study  would 
offer  many  interesting  paths  to  research.  We 
might  find  out,  for  example,  to  how  great  an 
extent  the  Utopians  of  various  ages  and  nations 
have  been  influenced  (as  Plato  was  conspicuously 

20 1 


Books  in  General 

influenced)  by  the  transient  conditions  of  their 
own  time.  For  instance,  the  great  variety  of 
opinion  which  Utopians  have  held  with  regard  to 
the  precious  metals  would  be  worth  examination. 
Some  have  held  them  in  great  respect ;  others 
have  vindictively  suggested  that  they  should  be 
put  to  the  basest  possible  uses.  Again,  how  far 
has  each  writer  of  this  kind  been  influenced  by  his 
predecessor  ?  It  can  scarcely  be  supposed,  for 
instance,  that  Campanella  did  not  lift  his  com- 
munistic ideas  bodily  from  Plato,  or  that  Mr. 
Wells's  class  of  Samurai  owed  nothing  to  the 
same  inspiration.  Sometimes  one  sees  a  quite 
minor  and  obviously  personal  idea  lifted  clean 
or  adapted  with  slight  alterations  which  make 
it  all  the  more  curious.  For  example,  in  More's 
Utopia  brides  and  bridegrooms  before  marriage 
always  inspected  each  other  in  a  state  of  nature. 
It  is  to  be  presumed  that  More  had  some  peculiar 
crank  on  this  subject ;  for  he  mentions  the 
possibility  of  concealing  deformities  as  though 
it  were  a  common  practice  that  should  certainly 
be  guarded  against  by  law.  When  we  get  to 
Bacon  we  find  this  odd  idea  copied,  with  the 
difference  that  it  is  now  the  friends  of  the  respec- 
tive parties  that  make  the  examination. 

The  endless  queer  details  in  Utopias  would  in 
themselves  make  such  a  study  amusing.  Plato's 
passion  to  secure  that  no  mother  should  know  her 
own  child  ;  the  preposterously  exact  account  of 
the  amount  of  money  subscribed  towards  the 

202 


Utopias 

foundation  of  the  new  state  in  Theodor  Hertzka's 
Freeland ;  the  wonderful  battle  between  the 
fleets  of,  if  I  remember  rightly,  Abyssinia  and 
Europe  in  the  same  book ;  the  trains  going  two 
hundred  miles  an  hour,  so  smoothly  that  people 
played  billiards  on  them,  in  Mr.  Wells's  New 
World.  I  remember  another  Utopia,  an  obscure 
eighteenth-century  one,  in  which  persons  who  had 
committed  murders  were  given  the  choice  of 
being  executed  in  honour  or  surviving  in  disgrace. 
If  they  chose  death  they  were  led  to  the  scaffold 
amid  universal  applause,  their  names  were  in- 
scribed upon  rolls  of  honour,  and  their  relatives 
were  given  fat  jobs.  Then,  again,  one  could  have 
a  quite  interesting  chapter  on  the  various  literary 
devices  by  which  authors  have  precipitated 
readers  into  their  supposititious  communities. 
More's  introduction — with  the  bronzed  and 
bearded  seaman  who  went  out  with  the  com- 
panions of  Columbus  and  was  stranded  on  an 
unknown  island — is  as  charming  as  any.  Later 
dodges  have  been  more  far-fetched.  Mr.  Wells's 
transferment  to  the  twin-world  of  this  one  is  very 
subtle  ;  Edward  Bellamy  made  his  hero  wake  up 
after  centuries  in  a  room  where  he  asked  for 
Edith  (his  old  fiancee)  and  was  conveniently 
answered  by  another  lady  of  the  same  name.  I 
say  nothing  of  the  books  which  lie  on  the  out- 
skirts of  Utopian  literature,  such  as  various 
grotesque  Utopias  and  anti-Utopias  and  books 
like  Lord  Lytton's  The  Coming  Race  and  W.  H. 
Hudson's  The  Crystal  Age,  which  last  is,  I 

203 


Books  in  General 

believe,  the  only  book  on  record  which  purports 
to  have  been  written  by  a  man  who  dies  in  the 
last  chapter  and  describes  his  own  demise.  And 
the  practical  attempts  to  set  up  working  ideal 
communities — such  as  the  Oneida  community 
which  developed  into  a  prosperous  "  Mfg.  Coy." 
— are  another  pleasant  by-way. 

I  think  that  with  all  the  peculiarities  of  time 
and  place,  all  the  eccentricities  of  personal  taste, 
and  all  the  genuine  varieties  of  ideals  allowed 
for,  a  student  of  Comparative  Utopianism  would 
probably  find  that  there  was  a  good  deal  in  the 
way  of  method  and  a  very  great  deal  in  the  way 
of  aim  that  all  Utopians  have  in  common.  Mr. 
Yeats  once  suggested  that  if  we  put  together 
whatever  the  great  poets  have  affirmed  in  their 
finest  moments  we  should  come  as  near  as  possible 
to  an  authoritative  religion.  In  the  same  way, 
one  feels  that  if  one  tabulated  the  ideals  of  the 
most  successful  writers  of  Utopias  we  should  be 
able  to  extract,  if  not  a  residuum  of  agreed 
schemes,  at  least  a  common  element  of  aspiration 
which  we  might  fairly  say  represented  the  per- 
manent ideals  of  the  human  race  respecting  the 
ordering  of  our  life  on  earth.  Really  intelligent 
and  altruistic  men — and  nobody  without  some 
intelligence  and  some  altruism  would  bother  to 
conceive  a  Utopia — have  a  tendency  to  dream  the 
same  sort  of  dreams.  To  take  it  on  its  negative 
side,  no  deviser  of  an  ideal  state,  as  far  as  I  am 
aware,  has  proposed  immense  inequalities  in  the 
204 


Charles  II  in  English  Verse 

distribution  of  wealth,  crowded  and  insanitary 
houses,  child  labour,  wars  of  aggression,  or 
sweating.  There  are  large  numbers  of  indus- 
trious and  accurate  people  in  this  country  and 
America  who  are  hunting  for  subjects  about 
which  they  can  write  volumes  of  "  research." 
I  wish  one  of  them  would  write  the  book  I 
suggest. 


Charles  II  in  English  Verse 

I  WAS  talking  to  a  man  the  other  day  about 
books  that  ought  to  have  been  written  and 
have  not  been,  when  it  occurred  to  me  that 
somebody  might  publish  a  very  amusing  selec- 
tion of  panegyrics  written  on  undeserving 
persons  :  say,  the  less  immaculate  of  the  English 
kings.  I  once  thought  of  writing  a  life  of  Charles 
II,  each  chapter  of  which  should  be  headed  by  an 
extract  from  some  contemporary  poem  about  him. 
The  contrast  between  the  character  and  private 
and  public  actions  of  this  monarch  and  the 
descriptions  of  him  by  literary  eulogists  would 
have  been  illuminating.  Gross  flattery  was  the 
habit  of  the  time.  James  the  First  was  given, 
very  unfairly  as  I  think,  the  title  of  the  British 
Solomon  ;  and  the  Royal  Martyr,  who  after  all 
had  some  virtues  very  highly  developed,  was 
written  of  in  terms  which  would  have  been  t&- 
treme  if  applied  to  St.  Francis  of  Assisi.  But  no 

205 


Books  in  General 

one,  not  even  his  father,  received  such  whole- 
hearted praises  as  Charles  II. 

His  career  as  a  recipient  of  them  began  early. 
When  he  was  a  child  Francis  Quarles's  Divine 
Fancies  were  dedicated  to  him.  The  Dedication 
was  headed  :  "  To  the  Royal  Bud  of  Majesty  and 
Centre  of  our  Hopes  and  Happiness,  Charles," 
and  began  :  "  Illustrious  Infant,  Give  me  leave 
to  acknowledge  myself  thy  servant,  ere  thou 
knowest  thyself  my  Prince."  The  hope  is  held 
out  that  the  illustrious  infant  will  become  "  a 
most  incomparable  Prince,  the  firm  pillar  of  our 
happiness  and  the  future  object  of  the  world's 
wonder."  Addressing  then  the  boy's  governess, 
Lady  Dorset,  Quarles  becomes  even  more  rhap- 
sodical : 


"  Most  excellent  Lady, 

"  You  are  the  Star  which  stands  over  the  Place 
where  the  Babe  lies.  By  whose  directions' 
light,  I  come  from  the  East  to  present  my  Myrrh 
and  Frankincense  to  the  young  child.  Let  not 
our  Royal  Joseph  nor  his  princely  Mary  be  afraid  ; 
there  are  no  Herods  here.  We  have  all  seen  his 
Star  in  the  East,  and  have  rejoyced  :  our  loyall 
hearts  are  full ;  for  our  eyes  have  seen  him,  in 
whom  our  Posterity  shall  be  blessed." 

One  could  scarcely  hope  that  Quarles's  successors 

would  quite  live  up  to  that. 

206 


Charles  II  in  English  Verse 

Dryden's  poem  on  Charles's  return  to  England 
is  pitched  a  little  lower.  It  certainly  contains 
lines  like 

line  winds  that  never  moderation  knew, 
Afraid  to  blow  too  much,  too  faintly  blew  ; 
Or  out  of  breath  with  joy  would  not  enlarge 
Their  straightened  lungs  .  .  . 

but  that  is  a  mere  excess  of  avowed  fancy.  When 
he  wrote  his  Threnodia  Augustalis  on  Charles's 
death,  Dryden  decidedly  went  one  better. 
Perhaps  it  was  that  he  had  had  twenty-five  years 
of  Charles's  reign  in  which  to  appreciate  fully 
the  King's  reverend  qualities.  He  calls  him 

That  all-forgiving  King 

The  type  of  Him  above, 
That  unexhausted  spring 

Of  clemency  and  love. 

He  apostrophizes  the  Muse  of  History  : 

Be  true,  0  Clio,  to  thy  hero's  name  ! 

But  draw  him  strictly  so 

That  all  who  view  the  piece  may  know  ; 
He  needs  no  trappings  of  fictitious  fame, 
The  load's  too  weighty. 

The  anguished  poet  almost  blasphemes  against 
heaven  for  taking  away  so  peerless  a  sovereign  ; 
until  he  remembers  that  "  saints  and  angels  " 

207 


Books  in  General 

had  been  done  out  of  Charles's  company  for  so 
long  that  their  turn  might  fairly  be  considered 
to  have  come.  And  there  is  the  further  conso- 
lation that  a  James  has  succeeded  a  Charles  : 

Our  Atlas  fell  indeed,,  but  Hercules  was  near  ; 
or,  as  the  Earl  of  Halifax  put  it, 
"James  is  our  Charles  in  all  things  else  but  name. 

Which  Charles  himself  at  least  knew  to  be  un- 
true. 

The  Halifax  extract  comes  out  of  another 
funeral  poem  On  the  Death  of  His  Most  Sacred 
Majesty.  "  Farewell,"  he  cries, 

great  Charles,  monarch  of  blest  renown, 
'The  best  good  man  that  ever  filled  a  throne. 

He  sketches  Charles's  career.  He  compares  his 
exile  to  the  banishment  of  David  (an  open  crib 
from  Astr&a  Redux)  and  says  of  England  that, 
when  he  came  back, 

to  his  arms  shefied 
And  rested  on  his  shoulders  her  fair  bending  head. 

He  "  Us  from  our  foes  and  from  ourselves  did 
save."  Only  the  almost  inevitable  comparison 
to  the  Almighty  can  do  him  justice  : 

20* 


Charles  II  in  English  Verse 

In  Charles  so  good  a  man  and-  King  we  see 
A  double  image  of  the  deity. 
Ob  !  had  he  more  resembled  it !     Oh,  why 
Was  he  not  still  more  like,  and  could  not  die  ? 

What  did  become  of  Charles  is  suggested  by 
"  the  Lord  R "  in  a  poem  which  appears  in 
Miscellany  Poems  : 

Good  kings  are  numbered  with  Immortal  Gods 
When  hence  translated  to  the  best  Abodes, 
For  Princes  (truly  great)  can  never  die, 
They  only  lay  aside  Mortality. 

After  which  we  are  told  that  the  deceased  is  in 
Olympus  passing  the  nectar  round  ;  an  occupa- 
tion that  should  have  suited  him  very  well. 

Perhaps  the  suggestion  will  be  adopted.  Let 
some  publisher  with  a  series  of  anthologies  get 
somebody  to  compile  The  Hundred  Most  Ful- 
some Poems  in  the  English  Language.  It  would 
be  a  more  entertaining  book  than  most.  Very 
few  examples,  I  think,  would  be  drawn  from  the 
last  hundred  years.  As  respects  the  monarchs, 
Great  Elizabeth,  the  Great  Jameses,  the  Great 
Charleses,  Great  William,  Great  Anne,  and  the 
Great  Georges  all  got  their  full  share  of  adulation. 
The  break  comes,  I  think,  with  George  IV ; 
since  whose  accession  we  have  lost  the  habit. 
Any  one  who  should  address  his  sovereign  to-day 
in  words  like  those  addressed  to  Charles  II  by 

o  209 


Books  in  General 

his  subjects  (e.g.  Great  George,  the  planets 
tremble  at  thy  nod)  would  be  suspected  of  pulling 
the  sovereign's  leg. 


The  Most  Durable  Books 

THE  question  of  what  books  one  would  take 
with  one  for  a  prolonged  sojourn  on  a 
desert  island  is  an  old  one.  I  thought  it 
had  lost  its  interest  for  me,  as  too  remote.  For  I 
do  not  propose  to  live  on  a  desert  island  ;  and 
if  ever,  by  accident,  I  am  cast  upon  the  shore  of 
one,  clinging  to  a  solitary  plank,  it  is  unlikely 
that  I  shall  have  spent  the  last  hour  on  ship- 
board selecting  mental  food  for  a  highly  prob- 
lematical future  as  a  hermit.  But  a  letter  from 
a  distressed  man  in  the  trenches  revives  my 
interest  in  the  question.  He  complains  that  he 
very  rapidly  exhausts  the  books  that  are  sent 
him  ;  that  few  of  them  are  much  use  as  permanent 
companions  ;  and  that,  as  they  take  up  room, 
he  can  carry  only  a  small  bundle  of  them  about 
with  him.  He  cannot  make  up  his  mind  which 
ones  to  get  and  stick  to  ;  and  he  ends  by  putting 
the  ancient  poser  to  me  :  "  What  three  "  (it  is 
always  three)  "  books  would  you  rather  have 
with  you  if  you  had  to  live  on  a  desert  island  ?  " 
He  adds,  with  somewhat  unnecessary  bluntness, 
that  he  will  not  believe  me  if  I  say  that  one  of 
them  would  be  the  Bible. 
210 


The  Most  Durable  Books 

I  suppose  there  must  be  some  definition  of 
what  a  book — what  one  book — is.  Otherwise 
one's  first  impulse  is  to  demand,  as  the  com- 
panions of  solitude,  the  Encyclopaedia  Britannica, 
the  Dictionary  of  National  Biography,  and  the 
Oxford  English  Dictionary — say  some  hundred  and 
twenty  volumes  in  all.  With  these  one  could 
spend  a  fairly  long  life  in  retreat  without  ever 
reading  the  same  page  twice.  One  might  even 
read  with  a  definite  scheme  which  would  give 
one  the  semblance  of  systematic  inquiry  united 
with  a  happy  unexpectedness  of  route.  Suppose, 
for  example,  one  were  to  start  each  day  from 
something  one  had  seen  in  the  morning.  A  boa- 
constrictor,  for  instance.  Having  twisted  its 
neck  and  left  it  for  dead — castaways  are  very 
powerful  fellows — one  would  go  home  to  the  old 
hut  and  refer  to  Boa  in  the  Encyclopaedia.  Hav- 
ing learnt  all  about  its  anatomy,  progenitiveness, 
and  habitats,  one  would  then  refer  to  the  Oxford 
Dictionary  for  the  derivation  of  its  name.  Under- 
neath the  philological  discourse  would  be  quota- 
tions from  authors  who  had  referred  to  the  beast 
or  to  its  feathery  similitude.  The  swift  advent 
of  the  tropic  night  would  find  one  still  immersed 
in  the  D.N.B.  lives  of  these  authors.  On  a  large 
rock  outside  one  would  keep,  with  a  charred  stick, 
a  list  of  the  objects  already  dealt  with  ;  once  in  a 
way  perhaps,  for  sentiment's  sake,  one  would 
start  from  an  old  word  again  and  revive  memories 
of  the  Boa  Trail.  A  person  of  simple  tastes, 
granted  the  island  produced  enough  goats  and 

211 


Books  in  General 

not  too  many  constrictors,  might  well  spend  in 
this  way  a  life  as  contented  as  Horace's.  But 
to  select  those  three  books  would  be  cheating. 

One  might  fairly  suggest,  in  such  a  connexion, 
that  a  book  is  either  (l)  any  single  coherent  work 
by  one  author,  or  two  in  collaboration  ;  or  (2) 
any  series  of  works  which  either  has  been,  or 
might  reasonably  be  expected  to  be,  published 
in  a  single  volume.  The  edition  for  island  use 
would  not,  however,  necessarily  be  a  one-volume 
edition.  This  rules  out  these  distended  works  of 
reference,  whilst  letting  in  every  single  piece  of 
creative  literature  that  exists.  There  may  seem 
to  be  an  unfair  discrimination  between  author 
and  author,  the  poets,  especially,  as  a  body, 
being  at  a  great  advantage  over  the  novelists  ; 
but  if  novelists  will  be  so  verbose  they  must  suffer 
for  it.  What,  then,  would  one's  three  books  be  ? 

I  can  think  of  a  good  many  books  that  I  have 
not  read  and  that  I  hope  to  enjoy  reading.  There 
is  The  Life  of  John  Buncle,  there  is  Old  Mortality, 
there  is  Hard  Times,  there  is  Tom  Paine's  Rights 
of  Man,  there  is  Hooker's  Ecclesiastical  Polity — 
and  I  am  imperfectly  acquainted  with  the  works 
of  Ben  Jonson  and  Beaumont  and  Fletcher. 
(I  have  also  not  read  Ordeal  by  Battle,  and  I 
don't  intend  to.)  But  the  mere  fact  that  one  has 
not  read  a  work  which  one  knows  to  be  interesting 
is  not  enough  to  qualify  it.  It  would  be  enough 
if  one  were  proposing  to  be  marooned  for  a 

212 


The  Most  Durable  Books 

fortnight  or  three  weeks  and  then  taken  off  the 
island  by  "  willing  hands  "  ;  but  the  books  one 
wants  for  a  residence  of  many  years  are  books 
one  is  sufficiently  familiar  with  to  be  certain 
that  they  will  not  grow  stale  at  the  fifty-fifth 
reading. 

Well,  Gibbon  is  a  large  and  a  very  long  book. 
I  have  been  through  it  once,  and  I  am  pretty 
sure  I  shall  do  so  again.  But  after  that  I  sus- 
pect that  the  passages  with  pencil-marks  beside 
them  will  satisfy  me.  I  certainly  could  not, 
just  after  finishing  it,  recommence  it  at  once,  as 
Lord  Randolph  Churchill  used  to  do,  or  make  a 
practice  of  dipping  into  it  daily.  Great  as  it  is, 
it  is  not  sufficiently  varied  or  sufficiently  human. 
For  perpetual  reference  no  general  history,  I 
think,  would  do ;  one  must  have  something 
more  of  the  flavour  of  everyday  humanity  in  it. 
And  every  mood  and  every  kind  of  character 
must  be  represented.  Though  the  books  may 
supplement  one  another,  one  finds  one's  choice 
growing  at  once  very  narrow.  Even  Horace 
Walpole's  Letters  or  Saint-Simon's  Memoirs 
would  pall — at  any  rate  on  me.  Shakespeare 
will  do  ;  but  I  cannot  personally  think  of  any- 
thing which,  for  me,  would  contest  the  other 
places  with  Boswell  and  Rabelais,  unless  it  were 
Morte  d?  Arthur. 

There  are  people,  no  doubt,  who  would  take 
Don  Quixote  or  Montaigne.  One  man  I  know 

213 


Books  in  General 

thinks  that  Tristram  Shandy  would  go  with  him. 
But  Sterne  is  too  short ;  one  would  get  to  know 
him  by  heart  in  a  month  or  two.  Robinson 
Crusoe  would  have  obvious  advantages,  especially 
in  an  illustrated  edition — which  would  provide 
one  with  useful  models  when  one  was  cutting 
out  one's  garments.  But  I  think  I  should  take 
the  three  I  have  mentioned — unless,  indeed,  I 
approached  the  matter  from  quite  a  different 
angle.  There  is  a  strong  case  for  taking  a 
selection  of  the  more  morose  and  bewildered 
modern  novels — say  La  Curee,  Le  Paradis  des 
Dames,  and  UAssommoir,  or  a  judicious  selection 
from  Artzybascheff,  Mr.  Cannan,  and  Mr.  D.  H. 
Lawrence.  For  these  would  do  a  great  deal  to 
reconcile  one  to  one's  lonely  lot.  Whenever  one 
was  regretting  the  world  of  men  one  would  find 
an  everflowing  spring  of  consolation  in  them. 
"  After  all,"  one  would  say,  after  each  agued 
page,  "  there  is  a  good  deal  to  be  said  for  a  desert 
island." 


The  Worst  Style  in  the  World 

THE  word  "  euphuism  "  is  commonly  em- 
ployed :    it   is  also  commonly  confused 
with  "  euphemism."     The  thing  is  very 
properly  condemned,  and  the  book  that  gave  it 
its  name  is  usually  condemned  with  it.     But  it  is 
probable  that  John  Lyly's  Euphues  has  frequently 
214 


The  Worst  Style  in  the  World 

been  abused  by  persons  who  have  never  opened 
it.  At  any  rate,  confessions  of  having  read  it 
are  few,  and  have  usually  proceeded  from  the 
small  minority  who  have  found  merit  in  the 
book.  It  is  very  interesting,  therefore,  to  see  that 
Messrs.  Croll  and  Clemens  have  just  published, 
through  Routledge,  a  new  edition,  fully  anno- 
tated. A  generation  unfamiliar  with  it  will  have 
a  chance  of  reassessing  it. 

The  work  is  in  two  parts.  Euphues :  The 
Anatomy  of  Wit  was  first  published  in  1578  ; 
Euphues  and  his  England  in  1580.  How  imme- 
diately popular  it  was  is  shown  by  the  fact  that 
(my  authority  is  Mr.  Arundell  Esdaile's  Bibli- 
ography of  English  Tales  and  Romances)  four 
editions  of  the  first  part,  three  of  the  second, 
and  then  at  least  seventeen  editions  of  both 
parts  together  were  published  in  fifty-eight  years. 
(His  name,  incidentally,  is  spelt  on  various  title- 
pages  Lylly,  Lyly,  Lylie,  Lilie,  Lyllie,  and  Lily :  a 
diversity  worthy  of  "  Shakspear.")  For  a  time 
almost  everybody  with  any  pretensions  talked 
and  wrote  euphuism,  very  often  employing  Lyly's 
fantastic  alliterations,  antitheses,  and  superfluous 
imagery  without  the  content  of  sense  that  Lyly 
always  had.  Some  writers  openly  ridiculed  it. 
Shakespeare  and  Jonson  made  sport  with  euphuis- 
tic  characters  ;  and  Sidney  (who,  I  think,  did  not 
entirely  escape  the  influence)  ridiculed  this 

Talking  of  beasts,  birds,  fishes,  flies, 
Playing  with  words  and  idle  similes. 

215 


Books  in  General 

But  the  development  of  English  prose  was 
sensibly  changed  by  it,  and  its  effect  may  be 
traced  in  the  prose  of  Donne,  Taylor,  and  Browne. 
The  book  itself,  however,  like  all  extravagantly 
mannered  books,  had  its  slump  in  the  end. 
Early  in  James  I's  reign  the  wider  public  seems 
to  have  turned  away  from  it,  and  in  1632,  E. 
Blount,  the  publisher,  prefacing  an  edition  of 
Lyly's  plays,  referred  to  him  as  a  forgotten  poet 
whose  grave  he  was  digging  up.  Blount's  own 
language  is  a  terrible  example  of  what  Euphuism 
may  come  to.  He  calls  his  author  "  a  Lilly 
growing  in  a  Grove  of  Lawrels  "  : 

"  These  Papers  of  his,  lay  like  dead  Lawrels  in  a 
Churchyard  ;  But  I  have  gathered  the  scattered 
branches  up,  and  by  a  Charme  (gotten  from 
Apollo)  made  them  greene  againe,  and  set  up  as 
Epitaphes  to  his  Memory.  A  sinne  it  were  to 
suffer  these  Rare  Monuments  of  wit,  to  lie 
covered  with  Dust,  and  a  shame,  such  conceipted 
Comedies,  should  be  acted  by  none  but  wormes." 

From  1636  to  1868,  when  the  late  Professor 
Arber  (a  man  whose  memory  has  not  been 
sufficiently  honoured)  published  his  edition  in  the 
"  English  Reprints,"  Eupbues  never  appeared 
again,  save  in  two  brief  eighteenth-century 
adaptations.  For  almost  a  hundred  years  his 
name  was  never  mentioned  ;  Lilly  the  astrologer 
was  much  better  known.  Most  eighteenth-  and 
nineteenth -century  critics  dismissed  him  as  a 
216 


The  Worst  Style  in  the  World 

man  who,  in  Sir  Walter  Scott's  words,  deformed 
his  works  "  by  the  most  unnatural  affectation 
that  ever  disgraced  a  printed  page."  One  of  the 
few  exceptions  was  Charles  Kingsley,  who  in 
Westward  Ho !  attacks  Lyly's  critics  with  tre- 
mendous enthusiasm  : 

"  I  shall  only  answer  by  asking,  Have  they  ever 
read  it  ?  For  if  they  have  done  so,  I  pity  them 
if  they  have  not  found  it,  in  spite  of  occasional 
tediousness  and  pedantry,  as  brave,  righteous, 
and  pious  a  book  as  man  need  look  into ;  and 
wish  for  no  better  proof  of  the  nobleness  and 
virtue  of  the  Elizabethan  age  than  the  fact  that 
Euphues  and  the  Arcadia  were  the  two  popular 
romances  of  the  day." 

Turning  at  this  stage,  on  a  sudden  impulse,  to  my 
Encyclopaedia,  to  see  whether  sense  is  talked 
about  Lyly  there,  I  find  that  the  article  on  him 
is  by  Mrs.  Humphry  Ward.  Life  is  full  of 
surprises. 

The  truth  of  the  matter  is  that  everybody  is 
right,  except  those  who  do  not  trouble  to  read  the 
book.  Kingsley  is  perfectly  correct  ;  it  would  be 
difficult  to  find  a  book  of  the  time  finer  in  feeling 
or  inspired  by  higher  conceptions  of  conduct. 
Lyly  is  as  full  of  common  sense  as  of  refinement ; 
and  the  fact  that  he  drew  much  of  his  discourses 
on  education  and  religion  from  other  writers  does 
not  diminish  the  impression  made  by  his  attitude 

217 


Books  in  General 

to  life.  His  narrative  does  not  come  to  much  ; 
most  of  his  space  is  occupied  by  harangues, 
debates,  treatises,  and  letters  ;  his  Neapolitan 
and  English  love-stories  move  at  a  snail's  pace. 
But — his  first  discussion,  by  the  way,  is  on 
heredity  and  environment  which,  with  startling 
modernity,  he  calls  Nature  and  Nurture — he 
usually  argues  about  things  of  perennial  interest, 
and  always  with  subtlety,  delicacy,  and  an  insight 
into  the  human  heart.  Still,  Sir  Walter  Scott 
really  was  not  exaggerating  the  monstrosity — 
though  it  is  not  uniformly  monstrous — of  his 
style.  It  takes  some  patience  to  put  up  with 
the  construction  of  his  sentences  and  his  re- 
current bunches  of  similes  in  order  to  follow  his 
argument.  On  the  second  page  you  fall  plump 
into  this  sentence  : 

"  The  freshest  colours  soonest  fade,  the  keenest 
Rasor  soonest  tourneth  his  edge,  the  finest 
cloth  is  soonest  eaten  with  the  Moathes,  and  the 
Cambricke  sooner  stayned  than  the  course 
Canvas  :  which  appeared  well  in  this  Euphues, 
whose  wit  beeing  like  waxe,  apt  to  receive  any 
impression,  and  bearing  the  head  in  his  own 
hande,  either  to  use  the  rayne  or  the  spurre, 
disdayning  counsaile,  leaving  his  country,  loath- 
ing his  old  acquaintance,  thought  either  by  wit 
to  obteyne  some  conquest,  or  by  shame  to  abyde 
some  conflict,  who  preferring  fancy  before  friends, 
and  this  present  humor,  before  honour  to  come, 
laid  reason  in  water  being  too  salt  for  his  tast,  and 
218 


The  Worst  Style  in  the  World 

followed  unbridaled  affection,  most  pleasant  for 
his  tooth." 

The  mania  for  balance  and  alliteration  is  shown 
here,  but  not  the  equally  characteristic  passion 
for  piling  animals  and  plants,  mainly  out  of 
Pliny,  into  mounds  of  comparisons.  They  are 
most  tolerable  when  the  statements  made  are 
least  verifiable.  Here  are  two  specimens  : 

"  The  filthy  Sow  when  she  is  sicke,  eateth  the 
Sea-Crab,  and  is  immediately  recured :  the 
Torteyse  having  tasted  the  Viper,  sucketh 
Origanum  and  is  quickly  revived  :  the  Beare 
ready  to  pine  licketh  up  the  Ants  and  is  recovered: 
the  Dog  having  surfetted  to  procure  his  vomitte, 
eateth  grasse  and  findeth  remedy :  the  Hart 
beein  perced  with  the  dart,  runneth  out  of  hand 
to  the  hearb  Dicbanum,  and  is  healed." 

"  Then  good  Euphues  let  the  falling  out  of 
friendes  be  a  renewing  of  affection,  that  in  this 
we  may  resemble  the  bones  of  the  Lyon,  which 
lying  stil  and  not  moved  begin  to  rot,  but  being 
striken  one  against  another  break  out  like  fire, 
and  wax  greene." 

Yet  sometimes  he  will  conclude  a  paragraph  of 
such  abnormalities  with  a  short,  humorous,  or 
pathetic  sentence  which  is  most  effective  ;  and 
even  sentences  bearing  the  evident  marks  of  his 
style  sometimes  move  one  strongly  in  their 
context.  I  may  quote  such  sentences  as  Lucilla's 

219 


Books  in  General 

two  complaints  :  "  But  I  would  to  God  Euphues 
would  repair  hither  that  the  sight  of  him  might 
mitigate  some  part  of  my  martyrdome,"  and  the 
extremely  sibilant  but  musical  "  O  my  Euphues, 
lyttle  dost  thou  knowe  the  sodeyn  sorrowe  that  I 
susteine  for  thy  sweete  sake."  What  a  really 
judicious  critic  would  do  would  be  to  ridicule 
the  style  and  admire  the  book. 


The  Reconstruction  of  Orthography 

RECONSTRUCTION  is  a  blessed  word, 
and  very  comprehensive  :  but  I  doubt 
whether  the  Government,  when  it 
established  the  Reconstruction  Committee, 
anticipated  that  it  would  be  asked  to  consider 
the  problem  of  Spelling  Reform.  The  Simplified 
Spelling  Society,  however,  has  sent  it  a  memorial 
urging  that  "  the  reform  of  English  spelling  is 
eminently  one  that  merits  the  practical  considera- 
tion of  the  Committee."  The  signatories  in- 
clude a  number  of  scientific  and  other  professors, 
scores  of  teachers,  and  a  tail  composed  of  "  men 
of  business,  men  of  letters,  editors,  etc."  The 
editors  do  not  include  any  man  who  edits  a 
London  daily  or  a  literary  weekly,  though  the 
directive  minds  of  the  Lady's  Realm  and  the 
Ardrossan  and  Saltcoats  Herald  are  in  the  move- 
ment ;  and  the  only  "  men  of  letters  "  are  Messrs. 
William  Archer,  H.  G.  Wells,  Eden  Phillpotts, 
220 


The  Reconstruction  of  Orthography 

T.  Seccombe  (at  whom  I  am  surprised),  and  a  few 
persons  who  combine  authorship  with  business 
or  with  "  etc."  One  did  not  want  this  piece  of 
negative  evidence  to  convince  one  that  authors, 
as  a  body,  will  fight  Simplifyd  Speling  to  the  last 
mute  k.  The  memorial  makes  the  usual  points 
about  saving  children's  time,  facilitating  the 
acquisition  of  foreign  languages,  lightening  the 
work  of  teaching  defective  children,  and  assisting 
aliens  who  are  acquiring  our  tongue.  We  are 
also  told  that  "  the  demand  for  a  rational  spelling 
may  be  compared  to  that  for  decimalizing  our 
coinage  and  our  weights  and  measures." 

This  comparison  seems  to  me  very  misleading, 
if  by  decimalization  is  meant  the  introduction 
of  the  Continental  metric  system.  For  this 
latter  is  uniform  in  various  countries,  whereas 
the  reform  suggested  by  the  Simplified  Spelling 
Society  would  do  nothing  to  approximate  the 
sound-values  of  our  letters  to  those  of  letters  in 
foreign  tongues.  Cosmopolitan  systems  have 
been  proposed,  very  complex  and  full  of  odd  new 
letters  ;  but  this  Society's  suggestions,  whilst 
eliminating  some  difficulties  for  the  foreigner, 
would  leave  English  just  as  difficult  for  a  French- 
man to  pronounce  as  French  is  for  an  English- 
man. Take  the  phrase  (I  find  it  here)  "  A  Ferst 
Reeder  in  Simplifyd  Speling."  A  Frenchman 
would  still  mispronounce  it.  If  he  wished  to 
indicate  those  sounds  in  the  French  way  he  would 
write  (I  am  not  a  phonetician)  something  like 

221 


Books  in  General 

"  E  Fceust,"  etc.  So  the  Society  had  better  not 
pitch  its  promises  too  high.  This,  nevertheless, 
remains  a  minor  point.  The  chief  considerations 
undoubtedly  are  the  domestic  effects  of  this 
piece  of  Reconstruction. 

It  sounds  all  very  simple  and  convincing  when 
people  say  :  "  Our  spoken  language  has  diverged 
from  our  written  language  :  let  our  written 
language  be  made  the  same  as  our  spoken 
language."  But  directly  you  go  into  the  matter 
you  find  that  the  difficulties  are  enormous. 
That  we  have  no  one  spoken  language  is  a 
commonplace.  Our  speech  varies  from  fashion 
to  fashion  and  from  locality  to  locality.  "  Edu- 
cated "  English  at  present  has  an  increasing 
Cockney  element  in  it.  The  common  "  cultured  " 
pronunciation  of  "  No,"  for  instance,  embodies 
an  "  o "  sound  which  is  anything  but  pure. 
Many  rustics,  however,  still  pronounce  it  with  a 
good  broad  vowel.  Even  the  spelling  reformers 
do  not  agree  about  words.  A.  J.  Ellis  thought 
the  "  r  "  at  the  end  of  "  proper  "  was  still  there  ; 
Sweet  thought  it  had  disappeared.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  it  is  both  there  and  not  there  :  in  some 
classes  and  parts  it  is  pronounced,  in  some  it  is 
not.  And  it  is  quite  possible  that  it  will  become 
universal  again. 

This  gets  us  on  to  the  question  of  change  in 
time.  The  Reformers  can  be  met  both  ways. 
If  it  be  argued  that  phonetic  spelling  fixes  pro- 

222 


The  Reconstruction  of  Orthography 

nunciation,  why  have  we  abandoned  the  old 
pronunciation  of  words  once  phonetically  spelt  ? 
Shakespeare  pronounced  the  initial  "  k "  in 
"  know "  and  "  knee."  We  have  dropped  it 
out.  And  we  have  no  guarantee  that  spelling 
these  words  according  to  our  present  slack  pro- 
nunciation would  not  be  followed  by  another 
divergence.  The  history  of  the  word  "  sea  "  is 
odd.  In  the  Middle  Ages  it  was  spelt  "  see  " 
and  pronounced  "  say."  In  Tudor  times  the 
spelling  was  altered  to  "  sea  "  in  order  to  make  the 
spelling  correspond  to  the  sound  (the  same  as 
that  in  "  great ").  We  have  reached  a  pro- 
nunciation which  the  original  spelling  would  have 
correctly  represented !  If  it  be  argued  that 
spelling  does  not  fix  pronunciation,  the  case  for 
the  reform  is  seriously  weakened.  The  truth  of 
the  matter  is  that  nothing  can  fix  a  pronunciation, 
but  that  the  written  word,  especially  in  an  age  of 
universal  literacy,  does  exercise  a  pull.  And  that 
pull  can  as  well  be  exercised  by  our  present 
spellings  as  by  new  ones.  I  think  it  was  Titus 
Gates  who  went  to  the  scaffold,  or  somewhere, 
crying  "  Lard  !  Lard  !  "  Had  he  been  a  spell- 
ing reformer  he  would  have  quite  unnecessarily 
assimilated  the  spelling  of  "  lord "  with  that 
of  the  name  of  the  white  stuff  they  keep  in 
bladders  :  a  distinct  loss  to  the  language.  Mr. 
Murison,  in  the  Cambridge  History  of  Literature^ 
points  out  that  the  word  "  kiln  "  was  originally 
pronounced  as  spelt ;  then  for  some  time  the 
"  n  "  was  dropped  ;  then  the  old  pronunciation 

223 


Books  in  General 

returned.  The  same  thing  happened  to  words 
containing  the  diphthong  "  oi."  "  Join  "  and 
"  oil "  were,  in  Middle  English,  pronounced  as 
they  are  now.  But  for  centuries  men  called 
them  "  jine  "  and  "  ile,"  a  habit  that  still  persists 
amongst  many  of  the  most  eager  supporters  of 
Spelling  Reform.  "  H's  "  were  dropped  whole- 
sale and  then  picked  up  again.  We  never  know, 
in  fact,  whether  we  shall  not  return  to  an  old 
way  of  speech  ;  and  we  might  as  well  do  that 
as  diverge  from  an  old  way  of  writing. 

The  great  consolation  of  conservatives  in  this 
matter  is  the  length  of  time  during  which  the 
enthusiasts  have  continuously  failed  to  bring 
about  a  change.  This  is  the  oldest  of  the  Cam- 
paigns. It  was  already  old  when  in  1585  a  book 
was  published  with  this  title-page  (differently 
accented)  : 

"  AEsopz  Fable'z  in  tru  Orto'graphy  with 
Grammar-notz.  Heryuntoo  ar  al'so  jooined  the 
short  sentencez  of  the  wyz  Cato  imprinted  with 
lyk  form  and  order  :  both  of  which  Autorz  ar 
translated  out  of  Latin  intoo  English.  By 
William  Bullokar." 

I  don't  suppose  that  the  Reconstruction  Com- 
mittee will  find  time  to  consider  this  matter. 
But  if  they  do  think  of  handling  it  they  should 
realize  that  they  are  going  to  put  their  hands  into 
a  nestful  of  the  largest  hornets. 
224. 


Mr.  James  Joyce 


Mr.  James  Joyce 

MR.  JAMES  JOYCE  is  a  curious  pheno- 
menon.    He  first  appeared  in  literary 
Dublin    about    (I    suppose)    a    dozen 
years  ago  :  a  strangely  solitary  and  self-sufficient 
and  obviously  gifted  man.     He  published  a  small 
book  of  verse  with  one  or  two  good  lyrics  in  it ; 
and  those  who  foresaw  a  future  for  him  became 
certain  they  were  right.     He  published  nothing  ; 
but  his  reputation  spread  even  amongst  those 
who  had  never  read  a  line  he  had  written.     He 
disappeared  from  Ireland  and  went  to  Austria, 
where  he  settled.     The  war  came,  and  soon  after- 
wards his  second  book — Dubliners — was  issued 
and   reviewed   with    a   general  deference,   after 
wandering   about    for   years    among    publishers 
who  had  been  fighting  shy  of  it  because  of  its 
undoubted   unpleasantness   and   a   reference   to 
Edward  VII.     Another  interval  and  A  Portrait 
of  the  Artist  as  a   Toung  Man  began   to  run 
serially  in  the  Egoist.     "The  Egoist,  Ltd.,"  has 
now  published  this  book,  and  nobody  is  sur- 
prised to  find  all  writing  London  talking  about  it. 
Mr.  Joyce  has  only  done  what  was  expected. 

Whether  this  book  is  supposed  to  be  a  novel  or 
an  autobiography  I  do  not  know  or  care.  Pre- 
sumably some  characters  and  episodes  are  fic- 
titious, or  the  author  would  not  even  have 

p  225 


Books  in  General 

bothered  to  employ  fictitious  names.  But  one 
is  left  with  the  impression  that  almost  all  the 
way  one  has  been  listening  to  sheer  undecorated, 
unintensified  truth.  Mr.  Joyce's  title  suggests, 
well  enough,  his  plan.  There  is  no  "  plot." 
The  subsidiary  characters  appear  and  recede, 
and  not  one  of  them  is  involved  throughout  in 
the  career  of  the  hero.  Stephen  Dedalus  is 
born  ;  he  goes  to  school ;  he  goes  to  college. 
His  struggles  are  mainly  inward  :  there  is  nothing 
unusual  in  that.  He  has  religious  crises  :  heroes 
of  fiction  frequently  do.  He  fights  against, 
succumbs  to,  and  again  fights  against  sexual 
temptation  :  we  have  stories  on  those  lines  in 
hundreds.  All  the  same,  we  have  never  had  a 
novel  in  the  least  degree  resembling  this  one ; 
whether  it  is  mainly  success  or  mainly  failure, 
it  stands  by  itself. 

You  recognize  its  individuality  in  the  very  first 
paragraph.  Mr.  Joyce  tries  to  put  down  the 
vivid  and  incoherent  memories  of  childhood  in  a 
vivid  and  incoherent  way  :  to  show  one  Stephen 
Dedalus's  memories  precisely  as  one's  own 
memories  might  appear  if  one  ransacked  one's 
mind.  He  opens  : 

"  Once  upon  a  time  and  a  very  good  time  it 
was  there  was  a  moocow  coming  down  along  the 
road  and  the  moocow  that  was  down  along  the 
road  met  a  nicens  little  boy  named  baby 
tuckoo  .  .  ." 
226 


Mr.  James  Joyce 

"  His  mother  had  a  nicer  smell  than  his  father," 
he  proceeds.  There  is  verisimilitude  in  this; 
but  a  critic  on  the  look-out  for  Mr.  Joyce's 
idiosyncrasies  would  certainly  fasten  upon  his 
preoccupation  with  the  olfactory — which  some- 
times leads  him  to  write  things  he  might  as  well 
have  left  to  be  guessed  at — as  one  of  them. 
Still,  it  is  a  minor  characteristic.  His  major 
characteristics  are  his  intellectual  integrity,  his 
sharp  eyes,  and  his  ability  to  set  down  precisely 
what  he  wants  to  set  down.  He  is  a  realist  of 
the  first  order.  You  feel  that  he  means  to  allow 
no  personal  prejudice  or  predilection  to  distort 
the  record  of  what  he  sees.  His  perceptions  may 
be  naturally  limited  ;  but  his  honesty  in  register- 
ing their  results  is  complete.  It  is  even  a  little 
too  complete.  There  are  some  things  that  we 
are  all  familiar  with  and  that  ordinary  civilized 
manners  (not  pharisaism)  prevent  us  from  im- 
porting into  general  conversation.  Mr.  Joyce 
can  never  resist  a  dunghill.  He  is  not,  in  fact, 
quite  above  the  pleasure  of  being  shocking 
Generally  speaking,  however,  he  carries  con- 
viction. He  is  telling  the  truth  about  a  type  and 
about  life  as  it  presents  itself  to  that  type. 

He  is  a  genuine  realist :  that  is  to  say,  he  puts 
in  the  exaltations  as  well  as  the  depressions,  the 
inner  life  as  well  as  the  outer.  He  is  not  morosely 
determined  to  paint  everything  drab.  Spiritual 
passions  are  as  powerful  to  him  as  physical 
passions ;  and  as  far  as  his  own  bias  goes  it 

227 


Books  in  General 

may  as  well  be  in  favour  of  Catholic  asceticism 
as  of  sensual  materialism.  For  his  detachment 
as  author  is  almost  inhuman.  If  Stephen  is 
himself,  then  he  is  a  self  who  is  expelled  and 
impartially  scrutinized,  without  pity  or  "  allow- 
ances," directly  Mr.  Joyce  the  artist  gets  to  work. 
And  of  the  other  characters  one  may  say  that 
they  are  always  given  their  due,  always  drawn 
so  as  to  evoke  the  sympathy  they  deserve,  yet 
are  never  openly  granted  the  sympathy  of  the 
author.  He  is  the  outsider,  the  observer,  the 
faithful  selector  of  significant  traits,  moral  and 
physical ;  his  judgments,  if  he  forms  them, 
are  concealed.  He  never  even  shows  by  a  quiver 
of  the  pen  that  anything  distresses  him. 

His  prose  instrument  is  a  remarkable  one. 
Few  contemporary  writers  are  effective  in  such 
diverse  ways ;  his  method  varies  with  the  subject- 
matter  and  never  fails  him.  His  dialogue  (as 
in  the  remarkable  discussions  at  home  about 
Parnell  and  Stephen's  education)  is  as  close  to 
the  dialogue  of  life  as  anything  I  have  ever  come 
across  ;  though  he  does  not  make  the  gramo- 
phonic  mistake  of  spinning  it  out  as  it  is  usually 
spun  out  in  life  and  in  novels  that  aim  at  a 
faithful  reproduction  of  life  and  only  succeed  in 
sending  one  to  sleep.  And  his  descriptive  and 
narrative  passages  include  at  one  pole  sounding 
periods  of  classical  prose  and  at  the  other  dis- 
jointed and  almost  futuristic  sentences.  The 
finest  sustained  pages  in  the  book  contain  the 
228 


Mr.  James  Joyce 

sermon  in  which  a  dear,  simple  old  priest  ex- 
pounds the  unimaginable  horrors  of  hell:  the 
immeasurable  solid  stench  as  of  a  "  huge  and 
rolling  human  fungus,"  the  helplessness  of  the 
damned,  "  not  even  able  to  remove  from  the  eye  a 
worm  that  gnaws  it,"  the  fierceness  of  the  fire  in 
which  "  the  blood  seethes  and  boils  in  the  veins, 
the  brains  are  boiling  in  the  skull,  the  heart 
in  the  breast  glowing  and  bursting,  the  bowels 
a  red-hot  mass  of  burning  pulp,  the  tender 
eyes  flaming  like  molten  balls."  Stephen,  after 
listening  to  this, 

"  came  down  the  aisle  of  the  chapel,  his  legs 
shaking  and  the  scalp  of  his  head  trembling  as 
though  it  had  been  touched  by  ghostly  fingers. 
He  passed  up  the  staircase  and  into  the  corridor 
along  the  walls  of  which  the  overcoats  and 
waterproofs  hung  like  gibbeted  malefactors, 
headless  and  dripping  and  shapeless." 

No  wonder.  For  myself,  I  had  had  an  idea  that 
this  kind  of  exposition  had  died  with  Drexelius  ; 
but  after  I  had  read  it  I  suddenly  and  involun- 
tarily thought,  "  Good  Lord,  suppose  it  is  all 
true  !  "  That  is  a  sufficient  testimony  to  the 
power  of  Mr.  Joyce's  writing. 

This  is  not  everybody's  book.  The  later 
portion,  consisting  largely  of  rather  dull  student 
discussions,  is  dull;  nobody  could  be  inspired 
by  the  story,  and  it  had  better  be  neglected  by 

229 


Books  in  General 

any  one  who  is  easily  disgusted.  Its  interest  is 
mainly  technical,  using  the  word  in  its  broadest 
sense  ;  and  its  greatest  appeal,  consequently,  is 
made  to  the  practising  artist  in  literature.  What 
Mr.  Joyce  will  do  with  his  powers  in  the  future 
it  is  impossible  to  conjecture.  I  conceive  that 
he  does  not  know  himself  :  that,  indeed,  the 
discovery  of  a  form  is  the  greatest  problem  in 
front  of  him.  It  is  doubtful  if  he  will  make  a 
novelist. 


Tennessee 

EETERS    from    strangers    can    usually    be 
accounted  for.    But  why  on  earth  I,  more 
than  any  one  else,  should  have  received  a 
letter   from   America   asking   me   to   contribute 
towards   the   re-establishment   of   a   backwoods 
library  I  don't  know.     This,  however,  has  been 
my    experience,    and    I    trust  that    I    am    not 
endangering  the   new  Anglo-Saxon  Entente  by 
relieving  my  feelings  in  the  following  : 

LINES 

Written  on  receiving  from  the  Librarian  of  a 
College  which  educates  "  the  mountain  youth  of 
Tennessee  "  a  request  for  "  a  book  "  to  assist  in 
the  re-formation  of  the  Library,  which  was 
recently  destroyed  by  fire. 

230 


Tennessee 

Mine  ears  have  heard  your  distant  moan, 

0  mountain  youth  of  Tennessee  ; 
Even  the  bowels  of  a  stone 

Would  melt  at  your  librarians  -plea. 
Although  we're  parted  by  the  ocean. 

Pm  most  distressed  about  your  fire  : 
Only  I  haven't  any  notion 

What  sort  of  volume  you  require. 

I  have  a  Greene,  a  Browne,  a  Gray, 

A  Gilbert  White,  a  William  Black, 
Trollope  and  Lovelace,  Swift  and  Gay, 

And  Hunt  and  Synge  :  nor  do  I  lack 
More  sober  folk  for  whom  out  there 

There  may  be  rather  better  scope, 
Three  worthy  men  of  reverend  air, 

A  Donne,  a  Prior,  and  a  Pope. 

Peacock  or  Lamb,  discreetly  taken, 

Might  jill  the  hungry  mountain  belly, 
Or  Hogg  or  Suckling,  Crabbe  or  Bacon 

(Bacon's  not  Shakespeare,  Crabbe  is  Shelley). 
And  if— for  this  is  on  the  cards — 

You  do  not  like  this  mental  food, 
I  might  remit  less  inward  bards  : 

My  well-worn  Spenser  or  my  Hood. 

Long  fellows  may  be  in  your  line 
(Littles  we  know  are  second-raters), 

Or  one  might  speed  across  the  brine 
A  Mayflower  full  of  Pilgrim  Paters. 

231 


Books  in  General 

Or,  then  again,  you  may  devote 

Yourselves  to  less  Aesthetic  lore, 
Yet  if  I  send  you  out  a  Grote  * 

For  all  I  know  you9 II  ask  for  More. 

0  thus  proceeds  my  vacillation  : 

For  now  the  obvious  thought  returns 
That  after  such  a  conflagration 

A  fitting  sequel  might  be  Burns. 
And  now  again  I  change  my  mind 

And,  almost  confidently,  feel 
That  since  to  Beg  you  are  inclined 

You  might  like  Borrow,  say,  or  Steele.  .  .  . 

Envoi 

Yes,  Prince,  this  song  shall  have  an  end. 

A  sudden  thought  has  come  to  me — 
The  thing  is  settled  :  I  shall  send 

A  Tennyson  to  Tennessee  ! 

But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  unless  I  get  a  special 
permit  for  the  export  of  second-hand  books,  I 
shan't  be  able  to  send  them  even  that. 

*  Or,  with  an  appearance  of  greater  generosity,  one   might 
return  them  the  Pound  they  sent  us  some  years  since. 


232 


Sir  Wm.  Watson  and  Mr.  Lloyd  George 


Sir  William  Watson  and 
Mr.  Lloyd  George 

EPRESENTATIVES  of  literature  and 
art "  usually  appear  in  the  Honours 
Lists,  and  they  are  usually  queer  repre- 
sentatives. The  knighted  litterateur,  as  a  rule, 
is  either  a  second-rate  man  or  a  man  long  past  his 
prime.  Possibly  more  men  than  we  know  of 
refuse  these  knighthoods.  For  myself  I  do  not 
see  what  on  earth  a  really  distinguished  artist 
wants  with  a  knighthood,  unless  he  is  poor,  and 
thinks  that  a  title  would  add  a  guinea  or  two  per 
thousand  to  the  price  of  his  work.  If  Sir  Samuel 
Johnson,  Sir  Charles  Dickens,  Sir  William  Blake, 
Sir  Robert  Browning,  Sir  W.  Wordsworth,  Sir 
S.  Taylor  Coleridge,  Sir  George  Meredith  stood 
beside  Sir  Lewis  Morris  and  Sir  W.  Robertson 
Nicoll,  Sir  Henry  Dalziel,  and  Sir  Hedley  le  Bas 
(of  the  Caxton  Publishing  Company),  I  do  not 
conceive  that  those  eminent  writers  would  be 
held  in  greater  honour  than  they  are,  or  that 
literature  would  cut  a  more  important  figure  in 
our  social  life.  The  one  man  to  whom  a  knight- 
hood may  usefully  be  given  is  the  deserving 
person  who  has  worked  conscientiously  for  years 
without  adequate  recognition  and  of  whose 
existence  the  public  might — to  his  and  its 

233 


Books  in  General 

advantage — be  officially  reminded.     As  the  crown 
of  a  famous  career  a  knighthood  is  absurd. 

Sir  William  Watson  has  presumably  got  his 
knighthood  for  being  one  of  the  most  industrious 
of  the  war-poets — and  a  war-poet  congenial  to 
the  Powers-that-now-Be.  Twenty  years  ago  he 
had  a  greater  reputation  than  he  now  has,  and 
wrote  several  good  and  many  respectable  poems. 
He  is  still  skilful,  and  can  echo  effectively  the 
accents  of  Wordsworth  and  Milton  ;  but  he  is 
certainly  not  a  man  of  whom  one  thinks  when 
one  is  estimating  the  vital  forces  in  contemporary 
poetry.  A  new  volume,  The  Man  who  Saw, 
has  just  appeared.  The  title-poem  is  about  the 
Prime  Minister  : 

Out  of  that  land  where  Snowdon  night  by  night 
Receives  the  confidence  of  lonesome  stars, 
And  where  Carnarvon's  ruthless  battlements 
Magnificently  oppress  the  daunted  tide, 
There  comes — no  fabled  Merlin,  son  of  mist* 
And  brother  to  the  twilight,  but  a  man 
Who  in  a  time  terrifically  real 
Is  real  as  the  time  ;  formed  for  the  time  ; 
Not  much  beholden  to  the  munificent  Past, 
In  mind  or  spirit,  but  frankly  of  this  hour  ; 
No  faggot  of  perfections,  angel  or  saint, 
Created  faultless  and  intolerable  ; 
No  meeting-place  of  all  the  heavenlinesses, 
But  eminently  a  man  to  stir  and  spur 
Men,  to  afflict  them  with  benign  alarm, 
Harass  their  sluggish  and  uneager  blood, 

234 


Sir  Wm.  Watson  and  Mr.  Lloyd  George 

Till,  like  himself,  they  are  hungry  for  the  goal ; 
A  man  with  something  of  the  cragginess 
Of  his  own  mountains ;  something  of  the  force 
That  goads  to  their  loud  leap  the  mountain  streams. 

Sir  William  proceeds  to  a  peroration  on 

the  man  of  Celtic  blood, 

Whom  Powers  Unknown,  in  a  divine  caprice, 
Chose  and  did  make  their  instrument,  wherewith 
To  save  the  Saxon  ;  the  man  all  eye  and  hand, 
The  man  who  saw,  and  grasped,  and  gripped,  and 

held. 

Then  shall  each  morrow  with  its  yesterday 
Vie,  in  the  honour  of  nobly  honouring  him, 
Who  found  us  lulled  and  blindfolded  by  the  verge 
Of  fathomless  perdition  and  haled  us  back. 
And  poets  shall  dawn  in  pearl  and  gold  of  speech, 
Crowning  his  deed  with  not  less  homage,  here 
On  English  ground,  than  yonder  whence  he  rose. 

This  must  certainly  be  the  most  eulogistic  poem 
ever  written  about  a  British  politician. 

There  is  nothing  about  Mr.  W.  M.  Hughes, 
Lord  Milner,  Lord  Curzon,  or  Lord  Devonport 
in  the  volume  ;  these,  perhaps,  will  be  dealt 
with  in  Sir  William's  next  book,  which,  I  do 
not  doubt,  will  be  ready  before  long.  But  Sir 
Edward  Carson  gets  his  meed  in  a  sonnet  To  the 
Right  Hon.  Sir  Edward  Carson,  on  leaving  An- 
trim, June  30,  1916,  and  another  sonnet  acclaims 
Lord  Northcliffe — to  whom,  possibly,  there  is  a 

235 


Books  in  General 

delicate  allusion  in  the  line  quoted  above, 
beginning  "  Whom  Powers."  The  sonnet  is 
called  The  Three  Alfreds ;  the  three  being  King 
Alfred,  Alfred  Lord  Tennyson,  and  Alfred  Lord 
Northcliffe  : 

Three  Alfreds  let  us  honour.     Him  who  drove 
His  foes  before  the  tempest  of  his  blade 
At  Ethandune — him  first,  the  all-glorious  Shade, 
The  care-crowned  King  whose  host  with  Guthrum 

strove. 

Next — though  a  thousand  years  asunder  clove 
These  twain — a  lord  of  realms  serenely  swayed  ; 
Victoria's  golden  warbler,  him  who  made 
Verse  such  as  Virgil  for  Augustus  wove. 
Last — neither  king  nor  bard,,  but  just  a  man 
Who,  in  the  very  whirlwind,  of  our  woe, 
From  midnight  till  the  laggard  dawn  began, 
Cried  ceaseless,  "  Give  us  shells — more  shells"  and 

so 

Saved  England  ;  saved  her  not  less  truly  than 
Her  hero  of  heroes  saved  her  long  ago. 

It  is  a  pity  that  there  could  not  have  been  added 
some  reference  to  Lord  Northclifre's  conviction 
that  nobody  in  his  senses  ever  dreamed  of  using 
shrapnel  against  wire.  Had  the  shells  passage 
been  expanded  it  might  have  been  less  cacopho- 
nous. As  it  stands,  it  gives  rise  to  the  suspi- 
cious illusion  that  the  sibilant  cry  was  uttered 
by  Mr.  (or  is  it  Sir  ?)  Wilkie  Bard.  But  no ; 
it  was  "  neither  King  nor  Bard.'; 
236 


Stranded 


Stranded 

>"  I  thought,  "I  won't  take  any 
books  with  me.  I  want  a  rest.  I 
shall  swim.  I  shall  catch  fish.  There 
is  sure  to  be  a  billiard-room  in  that  pub.,  and 
pretty  certain  to  be  a  few  people  who  play 
bridge.  The  overtaxed  brain  must  be  allowed 
relaxation.  So  good-bye,  Plato ;  good-bye, 
Spinoza ;  good-bye,  Samuel  Rawson  Gardiner ; 
good-bye,  Freud.  I  won't  take  any  of  you." 

I  had  been  in  the  place  twenty-four  hours,  and 
had  plumbed  the  depths  of  my  neighbours' 
incapacity  to  play  any  games  of  skill  or  chance 
(except  possibly — I  did  not  ask  this — loo  and 
vingt-et-un),  when,  sauntering  down  the  main, 
and  indeed  the  only,  street,  I  caught  sight  of  the 
words,  "  Grocer,  Chemist,  Tobacconist,  Draper, 
and  Circulating  Library."  It  would  be  un- 
gracious, I  felt,  to  let  such  versatility  go  un- 
recognized. Besides,  one  might  as  well  take  a 
novel  or  two  out  with  one  in  the  boat.  It  might 
make  the  intervals  between  the  bites  seem  a 
little  shorter.  So  in  I  went. 

A  young  girl  with  a  pigtail  escorted  me  past 
the  Quaker  Oats  and  the  Gold  Flakes,  under  a 
little  low  doorway  and  into  a  back  room.  "  A 
shilling  deposit,  and  twopence  on  each  book," 

237 


Books  in  General 

she  said  ;  and  left  me  to  the  shelves.  There 
were  books  there  all  right :  about  two  thousand 
of  them,  reaching  from  floor  to  ceiling  on  both 
sides.  There  was  no  sort  of  order,  alphabetical 
or  otherwise,  so  it  was  no  good  expecting  to  find 
a  particular  author  right  off.  The  only  thing 
for  it  was  beginning  somewhere  and  going 
steadily  along  the  rows. 

B.  M.  Croker  :  yes,  I  think  I  read  a  great  many 
of  hers  in  my  youth.  They  were  about  penniless 
young  ladies  going  to  India  and  getting  married. 
It  is  no  good  tackling  this  one.  The  Gateless 
Barrier,  by  Lucas  Malet ;  that  was  about 
spiritualism,  and  pretty  average  tosh  it  was  ;  I 
shall  probably  come  to  Sir  Richard  Calmady 
presently,  but  I  shall  give  him  a  miss  too.  The 
Iron  Pirate  :  I  liked  that  rather,  but  it  would  be 
a  pity  not  to  like  it  so  much  now.  I  feel  the 
same  about  Saracinesca,  The  Witch  of  Prague, 
and  In  the  Palace  of  the  King,  which  are  all  in  a 
lump  together  where  some  late  devotee  has 
replaced  them.  Marion  Crawford,  upon  whose 
every  word  my  childhood  hung,  I  dare  not 
attempt  you  again  ;  even  A  Cigarette  Maker's 
Romance  and  the  chronicle  of  Mr.  Isaacs  (who 
enjoyed  Kant  and  deluded  me,  for  a  time,  into 
the  belief  that  I  should  like  him  too)  will  be 
more  dear  to  the  memory  if  they  are  not  restored 
to  sight.  Count  Hannibal :  that  was  the  man 
who  either  massacred  somebody  or  escaped 
massacre  on  St.  Bartholomew's  Day.  He  had  a 
238 


Stranded 

great  square  jaw  and  eyes  that  made  you  jump  ; 
and  women  cowered  and  obeyed  when  he  emitted 
a  short,  sharp  oath  or  looked  like  emitting  one. 
William  Black  I  never  liked  at  any  time,  so 
nothing  by  him  need  detain  me.  Flames  ? 
No.  Dodo  ?  Oh  dear,  no.  Ships  that  pass  in 
the  Night  ?  No.  There  was  edelweiss  in  it, 
and  an  old  man  who  was  otherworldly  and 
read  nothing  but  Gibbon.  Queen  Victoria 
thought  highly  of  it,  but  I  don't  want  to 
read  it  again.  Nor  Red  Pottage  either.  The 
husband  and  the  other  man  (I  think)  had  a  duel. 
They  drew  straws,  and  the  man  with  the  shortest 
straw  had  to  kill  himself.  What  the  lady 
thought  about  it  I  don't  remember.  But  one  of 
them  was  a  Lord,  New  Zealand  came  in  some- 
where, and  at  suitable  places  in  the  conversation 
a  moth  would  flutter  or  a  kingfisher  flash  by. 
It  is  by  touches  like  these  that  one  can  dis- 
tinguish really  imaginative  literature,  but  I  am 
not  tempted. 

It  is  not  reasonable  to  expect  a  man  at  this 
date  to  return  to  A  Yellow  Aster,  or  Moths  by 
Ouida.  As  for  The  Silence  of  Dean  Maitland, 
the  predicament  of  that  respected  ecclesiastic 
with  the  undisclosed  sin  on  his  conscience  is  still 
fresh  in  my  mind,  and  I  still  remember  how  my 
elders,  when  it  first  came  out,  debated  whether 
such  a  book  ought  to  be  written,  and  whether 
Maxwell  Gray  was  a  man  or  a  woman.  Of  The 
Sorrows  of  Satan  I  recall  little  of  the  plot,  except 

239 


Books  in  General 

that  the  Devil  was  a  gentleman.  I  think  that 
the  first  sentences  were  :  "  Do  you  know  what  it 
is  to  be  poor  ?  Not  with  that — poverty  that — 
on  ten  thousand  a  year,  but  with  that  grinding 
poverty  that,"  etc.  How  many  years  ago  is  it 
since  that  immortal  paragraph,  reproduced  in 
facsimile  from  the  author's  own  script,  appeared 
in  the  Strand  Magazine,  with  pictures  of  the 
great  novelist  in  divers  postures  ?  It  would  be 
Ethel  M.  Dell  now,  I  suppose  ;  but  they  don't 
seem  to  keep  Miss  Dell's  works  in  this  Circulating 
Library,  of  which  the  circulation  seems  to  have 
stopped  many,  many,  many  years  since.  They 
keep  instead  Frankfort  Moore  and  G.  B.  Burgin. 

Anthony  Hope  now.  Here  is  The  Intrusions 
of  Peggy.  There  was  a  grizzled  inventor  who 
lived  in  the  Temple,  and  he  had  a  daughter  (?)  who 
shone  like  a  sunbeam  amidst  the  dusty  shades 
of  the  law.  Anthony  Hope,  who  was  very 
nearly  a  first-rate  writer,  must  have  put  it 
better  than  that ;  but  I'm  sure  that  that  is  what 
it  was  about.  Seton  Merriman  now.  This  is 
better.  But  will  or  will  not  a  reperusal  of  The 
Vultures  and  Rodents  Corner  diminish  the  respect 
that  still  survives  in  me  for  him  ?  He  gave  me 
immense  pleasure  at  one  time  ;  can  I  risk  it  ?  I 
don't  know. 

With  meditations  like  the  above  I  roamed  up 
and  down  before  the  frayed  and  wrinkled  backs 
of  these  veterans,  fascinated  by  so  systematic  a 
240 


Stranded 

recovery  of  the  familiar.  Then  I  remembered 
that  the  sun  was  shining  in  a  blue  sky,  only 
slightly  fleeced  with  cloud  ;  that  the  salt  wind 
blowing  shoreward  was  driving  broken  sunlight 
over  the  waves  ;  that  there  were  as  good  fish  in 
the  sea  as  ever  came  out  of  it ;  and  that  I  must 
really  take  care  of  my  health.  Catching  sight 
of  She  and  Many  Cargoes,  which  I  have  read  at 
least  ten  times  apiece,  but  am  always  good  for 
again,  I  detached  them  from  their  faded  com- 
panions and  took  them  into  the  front  shop, 
meditating  upon  the  astonishing  sluggishness  of 
this  shop,  where  even  Mrs.  Barclay  had  not  yet 
penetrated  and  Garvice  was  a  cloudy  speculation 
in  the  far  future. 

I  paid  my  one-and-fourpence  and  stepped  out 
on  to  the  cobblestones.  As  I  passed  into  the 
sun,  it  occurred  to  me  that  it  was  not  surprising 
that  even  the  minor  works  in  this  library  were 
like  old  friends.  For — and  things  like  these  do 
strangely  remain  known,  yet  for  a  time,  unre- 
lated— I  spent  a  summer  in  this  village  fifteen 
years  ago. 


241 


Books  in  General 


Mr.  Ralph  Hodgson 

MR.  RALPH  HODGSON  is  a  poet  who 
has  still  not  quite  got  his  due.  He 
has  just  collected  into  one  volume 
(Poems),  with  a  few  others,  the  verses  published 
in  a  series  of  "  Flying  Fame  Booklets  "  with  Mr. 
Lovat  Fraser's  charming  and  ingenious  cuts.  Ten 
years'  work  goes  into  seventy  pages,  so  that  a 
charge  of  over-production  is  scarcely  possible.  In 
the  circumstances  Mr.  Hodgson  might  have  in- 
cluded one  or  two  poems,  The  Last  Blackbird,  for 
example,  from  his  earlier  book.  That  book  as  a 
whole,  however,  was  not  comparable  with  this, 
which  contains  The  Bull,  indubitably  one  of  the 
finest  poems  of  our  generation,  The  Song  of 
Honour,  which  is  almost  as  good,  and  many 
charming  lighter  lyrics.  Eve,  particularly,  is  a 
feat.  Mr.  Hodgson  makes  a  delicate  tripping 
song  out  of  the  Fall  of  Man  ;  he  pictures  Eve, 
"  that  orchard  sprite," 

Wondering,  listening, 
Listening,  wondering, 
Eve  with  a  berry 
Half-way  to  her  lips, 

and  the  serpent,  a  graceful  beast, 

Tumbling  in  twenty  rings 
Into  the  grass. 
242 


Mr.  Ralph  Hodgson 

The  whole  story  trips  like  that. 

"  Eva  !  "  Each  syllable 
Light  as  a  flower  fell, 
"  Eva  !  "  he  whispered  the 
Wondering  maid, 
Soft  as  a  bubble  sung 
Out  of  a  linnefs  lungy 
Soft  and  most  silverly 
"  Eva  !  "  he  said. 

But — and  this  is  the  achievement — one  is  not 
left  with  a  sense  of  inadequacy  and  triviality. 
For  the  feeling  throughout  is  sincere,  and  the 
nature  of  the  calamity  is  conveyed  as  clearly  by 
Mr.  Hodgson,  who  makes  the  small  birds  chatter 
with  sorrow  and  indignation  when  Eve  falls,  as  it 
would  have  been  by  another  man  with  all  the 
paraphernalia  of  darkening  heavens,  thunderous 
voices,  and  long  Latin  words. 

But  this  poem  is  not  on  the  same  plane  as  The 
Bull  and  The  Song  of  Honour.  No  writer  has 
ever  entered  more  completely  into  the  feelings 
of  an  animal  than  does  Mr.  Hodgson  as,  in  a 
setting  of  tropical  forest  and  swamp,  he  shows  the 
defeated,  expelled,  and  dying  leader  of  the  herd 
remembering  his  calfhood,  and  his  early  fights, 
and  his  prowess  and  his  final  fall,  whilst  the 
obscene  birds  circle  round  overhead  waiting  for 
his  death.  The  Song  of  Honour,  an  attempt  to 
echo  the  Hymn  of  Praise  sung  by  all  things  to 

2.3 


Books  in  General 

their  Maker,  is,  in  the  nature  of  things,  more 
disjointed  and  impressionistic,  less  exact  and 
well-shaped.  It  owes  as  much  as  any  poem  can 
decently  owe  to  another  to  Christopher  Smart's 
Song  to  David.  But  the  strength  of  feeling  never 
fails,  and  parts  of  the  breathless  paean  are  very 
beautiful. 

The  music  of  a  lion  strong 

That  shakes  a  hill  a  whole  night  long, 

A  hill  as  loud,  as  be, 

The  twitter  of  a  mouse  among 

Melodious  greenery, 

The  ruby's  and  the  rainbow's  song, 

The  nightingale's — all  three, 

The  song  of  life  that  wells  and  flows 

From  every  leopard,  lark  and  rose 

And  everything  that  gleams  or  goes 

Lack-lustre  in  the  sea. 

I  heard  it  all,  I  heard  the  whole 

Harmonious  hymn  of  being  roll 

Up  through  the  chapel  of  my  soul 

And  at  the  altar  die, 

And  in  the  awful  quiet  then 

Myself  I  heard,  Amen,  Amen, 

Amen  I  heard  me  cry  ! 

I  heard  it  all  and  then  although 

I  caught  my  flying  senses,  Oh, 

A  dizzy  man  was  I ! 

I  stood  and  stared  ;  the  sky  was  lit, 

The  sky  was  stars  all  over  it* 


Double  Misprints 

I  stood,  I  knew  not  why, 

Without  a  wish,  without  a  will, 

I  stood  upon  that  silent  hill 

And  stared  into  the  sky  until 

My  eyes  were  blind  with  stars  and  still 

I  stared  into  the  sky. 

Those  are  two  of  the  last  stanzas,  and  even 
standing  alone,  I  think,  give  something  of  the 
quality  of  the  poem.  They  certainly  are  charac- 
teristic in  the  simplicity  of  their  language. 


Double  Misprints 

TAKE  the   following   paragraph  from  the 

Connersville  (Ind.}  Herald  : 


I 


"  The  Guest  Day  meeting  of  the  literary  club 
will  be  held  at  the  home  of  Mrs.  L.  A.  Frazer 
to-morrow  afternoon.  Mrs.  De  Morgan  Jones, 
of  Indianapolis,  will  lecture  on  '  William  Butler 
Meats  and  the  Garlic  Revival.' ' 

I  think  the  Lady  of  Shalott  should  have  been 
brought  in.  Double  misprints  are  rare,  but  I 
remember  another  which  also  was  perpetrated 
in  America  but  which  has  not  quite  so  con- 
vincing an  air  of  sheer  accident  as  this  one.  A 
Colonel,  who  had  fought  in  the  Civil  War,  was 
described  in  his  local  paper  as  "  a  battle-scared 
veteran."  This  imputation  on  his  courage 

245 


Books  in  General 

brought  him  to  the  office  with  a  big  stick  and  a 
demand  that  the  paragraph  should  be  reprinted 
with  the  offensive  remark  corrected.  It  was  : 
but  another  misprint  crept  in  and  the  word 
appeared  as  "  bottle-scarred."  Every  one  who 
has  dealings  with  the  Press  occasionally  corrects, 
amid  the  mass  of  quite  meaningless  "  literals," 
a  misprint  that  really  makes  some  sort  of  sense. 
I  myself  in  the  last  few  months  have  had  to 
emend  printers'  references  to  Mr.  Hotairio 
Bottomley  and  Mr.  Edmund  Goose.  The  former 
one  felt  tempted  to  leave  uncorrected,  the 
derangement  of  letters  being  so  extremely  apt. 


The  History  of  Earl  Fumbles 

"  rT^HE  late  Earl  (Eorl  ?)  Fumbles  was  of 
lowly  birth.  He  was  born  in  the  thorp 
JL  of  Stoke  Parva  in  1850,  the  son  of  a 
penniless  timber-wright.  Outdriven  from  his 
first  school,  he  became  a  fighting-man.  He  was 
a  dreadless  and  fearnought  wight,  and  was  once 
left  for  dead  on  the  field,  bleeding  at  every  sweat- 
hole.  The  saw-bones  brought  him  through. 
Coming  back  to  England  he  saw  the  haplihood 
of  making  a  gold-hoard  in  the  soap-trade.  He 
set  up  a  business  with  the  gold  of  others  ;  got 
rid  of  his  yoke-mates  by  sundry  underslinkings, 
and  soon  became  amazingly  wealthy.  An 
earldom  followed ;  though  it  is  markworthy 
24.6 


The  History  of  Earl  Fumbles 

that  on  the  morning  after  its  bestowal  a  great 
songsmith  wrote  to  the  Daily  Score  to  say : 
'  The  Gusher  of  Fair-Name  is  befouled.'  In 
1910  Lord  Fumbles  went  as  sendling  to  the 
King  of  Siam,  with  a  bodeword  from  our  King. 
In  the  back-end  of  the  next  year  his  health  gave 
out ;  he  became  bit-wise  worse  ;  and  he  died 
last  night  of  belly-ache.  Lord  Fumbles  was  often 
to  be  seen  at  Sir  Henry  Wood's  Out-Road  Glee- 
Motes  at  Queen's  Hall,  but  he  was  almost  a 
comeling  at  the  House  of  Lords.  He  was  cun- 
ning in  Kin-lore,  and  in  his  fair  wonestead  at 
Fumbles  wrote  a  great  book  on  the  stem-tree  of 
his  kin.  By  ill  hap  he  was  an  eat-all  and  rather 
soaksome.  He  will  be  buried  on  Wednesday 
in  the  bone-yard  at  Fumbles,  in  which  lich-rest 
his  wife  already  lies.  The  earldom  goes,  by  out- 
of-the-way  odd-come-short,  to  his  daughter." 

This  little  biography  may  have  puzzled  those 
who  have  got  thus  far.  They  may  have  thought 
it  absurd.  I  compiled  it  with  the  help  of 
"  C.  L.  D.'s  "  Word-Book  of  the  English  Tongue, 
just  published  by  Routledge.  "  C.  L.  D."  (the 
initials  are,  I  observe,  those  of  the  author  of  Alice 
in  Wonderland)  is  one  of  those  enthusiasts  who  long 
"  to  shake  off  the  Norman  yoke "  which  lies  so 
heavy  on  our  speech.  He  follows,  that  is  to  say, 
in  the  footsteps  of  the  late  Rev.  William  Barnes 
(of  Dorset),  who  asked  his  countrymen  to  call 
a  perambulator  a  "  child-wain  "  and  an  omni- 
bus a  "  folk-wain."  "  What  many  speakers  and 

247 


Books  in  General 

writers,"  he  remarks,  "  even  to-day,  call  English, 
is  no  English  at  all  but  sheer  French.  Neverthe- 
less, there  are  many  who  feel  not  a  little  ashamed 
of  the  needless  loan-words  in  which  their  speech 
is  clothed,  and  of  the  borrowed  feathers  in  which 
they  strut.  Over  and  over  again  it  has  been 
said,  and  most  truly,  that  for  liveliness  and 
strength,  manliness  and  fulness  of  meaning,  the 
olden  English  Tongue  were  hard  to  beat."  "  In 
this  little  Word-Book,  therefore,"  he  says  : 

"  after  having  chosen  a  few  thousand  stock  loan- 
words, I  have  striven  to  set  by  the  side  of  each, 
not  indeed  "  synonyms,"  but  other  good  English 
words,  which  may  stand  in  their  stead." 

Which  is  certainly  (or,  I  think  I  should  say, 
"  ywis  "  or  "  in  good  sooth ")  a  pure  English 
sentence. 

One  primary  fault  "  C.  L.  D."  avoids  almost 
entirely.  He  does  not  (as  he  might  have  done 
had  he  cared  to  take  all  the  astonishing  Latin 
words  from  Johnson's  Word-Book)  load  the 
dice  by  including  in  his  list  of  "  loan-words  " 
words  which  we  hardly  ever  use.  There  are  a 
few.  Only  a  scientist  would  say  "  acephalous  " 
when  he  meant  "  headless  "  ;  and  the  general  pub- 
lic does  not  need  to  be  warned  to  say  "  grind," 
"  bristly,"  "  stalkless,"  and  "  barefooted," 
instead  of  "  comminute,"  "  aristate,"  "  acau- 
lescent."  and  "  discalced."  It  would  never  dream 


The  History  of  Earl  Fumbles 

of  saying  acaulescent.  Where  our  author  errs  is 
where  he  would  inevitably  err  :  in  suggesting  to 
us  (i)  Saxon  words  which  we  simply  won't  use, 
and  (2)  Saxon  words  which  do  not  take  the  place 
of  the  Latin  words  of  which  he  disapproves. 
Take,  for  instance,  as  an  instance  of  the  latter 
category,  this  very  word  "  disapprove."  All  he 
can  give  us  is  a  list  of  "  strong  "  words  beginning 
with  "  hiss  "  and  "  hoot,"  none  of  which  gets 
the  exact  shade  of  meaning  required.  Similarly 
with  "  decry,"  for  which  his  suggestions  are 
"  boo  "  and  "  hoot."  In  suggesting  "  clean," 
"  flat,"  etc.,  for  "  absolute  "  he  is  merely  booing 
and  hooting  the  slang  use  of  that  word,  but  he 
has  not  found  a  Saxon  equivalent  for  the  real 
"  absolute."  For  "  complimentary  "  he  gives 
"  smooth-spoken  "  ;  but  how  would,  say,  the 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury  like  to  get  a  letter  of 
thanks  beginning :  "  My  dear  Archbishop,— 
Many  thanks  for  your  very  smooth-spoken 
remarks  "  ?  For  "  uncomfortable  "  he  can  only 
suggest  "  writhing  "  — as  though  we  could  say 
that  we  had  spent  a  fortnight  in  a  most  writhing 
hotel ;  and  for  "  temporalities  "  he  has  nothing 
but  "  loaves  and  fishes "  —which  is  simply 
offensive.  If  one  began  using  words  like  these 
promiscuously,  one  would  simply  (here  I  consult 
the  Word-Book  again)  be  asking  for  misluck. 

To  turn  to  the  other  lot,  it  is  altogether  too 
late  to  ask  us  to  say  "  rede-craft  "  for  "  logic  "  ; 
"backjaw"  for  "retort";  "handmaid"  for 

249 


Books  in  General 


"  servant  "  ;  "  outganger  "  for  "  emigrant  "  ; 
"  wanhope  "  (a  most  beautiful  word,  I  admit) 
for  "  despair  "  ;  "  scald  "  or  "  songsmith  "  for 
"poet";  "hight"  or  "yclept"  for  "de- 
nominated "  ;  "  uplooking  "  for  "  aspiring  "  ; 
"  fourwinkled  "  for  "  quadrangular  "  ;  and, 
above  all,  to  replace  "  depilatory "  by  "  hair- 
bane."  "  Ereold  "  and  "  foreold  "  for 
"  ancient  "  are  no  longer  possible  ;  and  the  man 
who  should  say  that  the  King  was  crowned  and 
besmeared  in  Westminster  Abbey  would  be 
quite  unable  to  persuade  people  that  he  wasn't 
merely  a  rather  coarse  satirist.  In  cases  where 
both  terms  are  alive,  the  Latin  is  often  more 
convenient — because  shorter — than  the  Saxon. 
If  we  always  used  "  breach  of  wedlock  "  instead 
of  "  adultery,"  many  modern  novels,  and  most 
Sunday  newspapers,  would  use  up  twice  as  much 
paper  and  ink.  (There  was  once  a  half-way 
word  :  the  mediaeval  heralds  used  to  say  that  the 
leopard  was  "  begotten  in  spouse-breach  between 
the  lion  and  the  pard.")  In  proposing  "  hand- 
grip "  for  portmanteau,  our  wordloresman  is  doing 
an  audacious  thing  :  adopting  a  bit  of  modern 
American — though,  as  often  as  not,  the  term  is 
shortened,  across  the  water,  to  "  grip  "  tout  court. 

There  remain,  of  course,  a  very  large  number  of 
words  for  which  "  C.  L.  D."  does  provide  genuine 
living  synonyms  which,  in  many  cases,  are 
stronger  and  terser  than  the  originals.  Even 
here,  of  course,  there  are  occasional  difficulties  ; 
250 


On  Destroying  Books 

we  have,  at  any  rate  in  print,  thrown  over 
"C.  L.  D.'s"  favourites  "belly-ache"  and 
"  gripes  "  in  favour  of  "  colic  "  simply  because 
they  are  what  is  called  "  good  sturdy  Saxon," 
altogether  too  apt  and  sturdy.  As  for  his 
proposal  of  "  ropes  "  and  "  manifolds  "  for 
"  intestines,"  all  I  can  say  is  that  I  much  prefer 
here  to  remain  under  the  Norman  yoke.  At  the 
same  time,  too  much  Latinity  is  a  nuisance  and  a 
danger  to  the  vividness  of  our  tongue  ;  and, 
whilst  refraining  from  following  "  C.  L.  D."  to 
his  thorps  or  Barnes  to  his  folk-wain,  I  think  I 
shall  sometimes  find  the  Word-Book  useful. 


On  Destroying  Books 

IT  says  in  the  paper  "  that  over  two  million 
volumes  have  been  presented  to  the  troops 
by  the  public.  It  would  be  interesting  to 
inspect  them.  Most  of  them,  no  doubt,  are 
quite  ordinary  and  suitable ;  but  it  was  publicly 
stated  the  other  day  that  some  people  were 
sending  the  oddest  things,  such  as  magazines 
twenty  years  old,  guides  to  the  Lake  District, 
Bradshaws,  and  back  numbers  of  Whitaker's 
Almanack.  In  some  cases,  one  imagines,  such 
indigestibles  get  into  the  parcels  by  accident ; 
but  it  is  likely  that  there  are  those  who  jump  at 
the  opportunity  of  getting  rid  of  books  they  don't 
want.  Why  have  kept  them  if  they  don't  want 

251 


Books  in  General 

them  ?  But  most  people,  especially  non-bookish 
people,  are  very  reluctant  to  throw  away  any- 
thing that  looks  like  a  book.  In  the  most 
illiterate  houses  that  one  knows  every  worthless 
or  ephemeral  volume  that  is  bought  finds  its 
way  to  a  shelf  and  stays  there.  In  reality  it  is 
not  merely  absurd  to  keep  rubbish  merely  because 
it  is  printed  :  it  is  positively  a  public  duty  to 
destroy  it.  Destruction  not  merely  makes  more 
room  for  new  books  and  saves  one's  heirs  the 
trouble  of  sorting  out  the  rubbish  or  storing  it  : 
it  may  also  prevent  posterity  from  making  a 
fool  of  itself.  We  may  be  sure  that  if  we  do 
not  burn,  sink,  or  blast  all  the  superseded  editions 
of  Bradshaw,  two  hundred  years  hence  some 
collector  will  be  specializing  in  old  railway  time- 
tables, gathering,  at  immense  cost,  a  complete 
series,  and  ultimately  leaving  his  "  treasures  "  (as 
the  Press  will  call  them)  to  a  Public  Institution. 

But  it  is  not  always  easy  to  destroy  books. 
They  may  not  have  as  many  lives  as  a  cat,  but 
they  certainly  die  hard  ;  and  it  is  sometimes 
difficult  to  find  a  scaffold  for  them.  This 
difficulty  once  brought  me  almost  within  the 
Shadow  of  the  Rope.  I  was  living  in  a  small  and 
(as  Shakespeare  would  say)  heaven-kissing  flat 
in  Chelsea,  and  books  of  inferior  minor  verse 
gradually  accumulated  there  until  at  last  I  was 
faced  with  the  alternative  of  either  evicting  the 
books  or  else  leaving  them  in  sole,  undisturbed 
tenancy  and  taking  rooms  elsewhere  for  myself. 
252 


On  Destroying  Books 

Now,  no  one  would  have  bought  these  books. 
I  therefore  had  to  throw  them  away  or  wipe 
them  off  the  map  altogether.  But  how  ?  There 
were  scores  of  them.  I  had  no  kitchen  range, 
and  I  could  not  toast  them  on  the  gas-cooker 
or  consume  them  leaf  by  leaf  in  my  small  study 
fire — for  it  is  almost  as  hopeless  to  try  to  burn 
a  book  without  opening  it  as  to  try  to  burn  a 
piece  of  granite.  I  had  no  dust-bin  ;  my  debris 
went  down  a  kind  of  flue  behind  the  staircase, 
with  small  trap-doors  opening  to  the  landings. 
The  difficulty  with  this  was  that  the  larger  books 
might  choke  it ;  the  authorities,  in  fact,  had 
labelled  it  "  Dust  and  Ashes  Only  "  ;  and  in  any 
case  I  did  not  want  to  leave  the  books  intact, 
and  some  dustman's  unfortunate  family  to  get 
a  false  idea  of  English  poetry  from  them.  So  in 
the  end  I  determined  to  do  to  them  what  so 
many  people  do  to  the  kittens  :  tie  them  up  and 
consign  them  to  the  river.  I  improvised  a  sack, 
stuffed  the  books  into  it,  put  it  over  my  shoulder, 
and  went  down  the  stairs  into  the  darkness. 

It  was  nearly  midnight  as  I  stepped  into  the 
street.  There  was  a  cold  nip  in  the  air  ;  the  sky 
was  full  of  stars  ;  and  the  greenish-yellow  lamps 
threw  long  gleams  across  the  smooth,  hard  road. 
Few  people  were  about ;  under  the  trees  at  the 
corner  a  Guardsman  was  bidding  a  robust  good 
night  to  his  girl,  and  here  and  there  rang  out  the 
steps  of  solitary  travellers  making  their  way  home 
across  the  bridge  to  Battersea.  I  turned  up  my 

253 


Books  in  General 

overcoat  collar,  settled  my  sack  comfortably 
across  my  shoulders,  and  strode  off  towards  the 
little  square  glow  of  the  coffee-stall  which  marked 
the  near  end  of  the  bridge,  whose  sweeping  iron 
girders  were  just  visible  against  the  dark  sky 
behind.  A  few  doors  down  I  passed  a  policeman 
who  was  flashing  his  lantern  on  the  catches  of 
basement  windows.  He  turned.  I  fancied  he 
looked  suspicious,  and  I  trembled  slightly.  The 
thought  occurred  to  me  :  "  Perhaps  he  suspects 
I  have  swag  in  this  sack."  I  was  not  seriously 
disturbed,  as  I  knew  that  I  could  bear  investiga- 
tion, and  that  nobody  would  be  suspected  of 
having  stolen  such  goods  (though  they  were  all 
first  editions)  as  I  was  carrying.  Nevertheless 
I  could  not  help  the  slight  unease  which  comes  to 
all  who  are  eyed  suspiciously  by  the  police,  and 
to  all  who  are  detected  in  any  deliberately 
furtive  act,  however  harmless.  He  acquitted 
me,  apparently  ;  and,  with  a  step  that,  making 
an  effort,  I  prevented  from  growing  more  rapid,  I 
walked  on  until  I  reached  the  Embankment. 

It  was  then  that  all  the  implications  of  my 
act  revealed  themselves.  I  leaned  against 
the  parapet  and  looked  down  into  the  faintly 
luminous  swirls  of  the  river.  Suddenly  I  heard 
a  step  near  me  ;  quite  automatically  I  sprang 
back  from  the  wall  and  began  walking  on  with,  I 
fervently  hoped,  an  air  of  rumination  and  un- 
concern. The  pedestrian  came  by  me  without 
looking  at  me.  It  was  a  tramp,  who  had  other 

254 


On  Destroying  Books 

things  to  think  about ;  and,  calling  myself  an 
ass,  I  stopped  again.  "  Now's  for  it,"  I  thought ; 
but  just  as  I  was  preparing  to  cast  my  books 
upon  the  waters  I  heard  another  step — a  slow 
and  measured  one.  The  next  thought  came  like 
a  blaze  of  terrible  blue  lightning  across  my 
brain  :  "  What  about  the  splash  ?  "  A  man 
leaning  at  midnight  over  the  Embankment  wall : 
a  sudden  fling  of  his  arms  :  a  great  splash  in  the 
water.  Surely,  and  not  without  reason,  whoever 
was  within  sight  and  hearing  (and  there  always 
seemed  to  be  some  one  near)  would  at  once  rush 
at  me  and  seize  me.  In  all  probability  they 
would  think  it  was  a  baby.  What  on  earth 
would  be  the  good  of  telling  a  London  constable 
that  I  had  come  out  into  the  cold  and  stolen 
down  alone  to  the  river  to  get  rid  of  a  pack  of 
poetry  ?  I  could  almost  hear  his  gruff,  sneering 
laugh :  "  You  tell  that  to  the  Marines,  my  son ! " 

So  for  I  do  not  know  how  long  I  strayed  up  and 
down,  increasingly  fearful  of  being  watched, 
summoning  up  my  courage  to  take  the  plunge 
and  quailing  from  it  at  the  last  moment.  At 
last  I  did  it.  In  the  middle  of  Chelsea  Bridge 
there  are  projecting  circular  bays  with  seats  in 
them.  In  an  agony  of  decision  I  left  the  Embank- 
ment and  hastened  straight  for  the  first  of  these. 
When  I  reached  it  I  knelt  on  the  seat.  Looking 
over,  I  hesitated  again.  But  I  had  reached  the 
turning-point.  "  What !  "  I  thought  savagely, 
"  under  the  resolute  mask  that  you  show  your 

255 


Books  in  General 

friends  is  there  really  a  shrinking  and  contemptible 
coward  ?  If  you  fail  now,  you  must  never  hold 
your  head  up  again.  Anyhow,  what  if  you  are 
hanged  for  it  ?  Good  God  !  you  worm,  better 
men  than  you  have  gone  to  the  gallows  !  "  With 
the  courage  of  despair  I  took  a  heave.  The  sack 
dropped  sheer.  A  vast  splash.  Then  silence  fell 
again.  No  one  came.  I  turned  home  ;  and  as 
I  walked  I  thought  a  little  sadly  of  all  those 
books  falling  into  that  cold  torrent,  settling 
slowly  down  through  the  pitchy  dark,  and  sub- 
siding at  last  on  the  ooze  of  the  bottom,  there  to 
lie  forlorn  and  forgotten  whilst  the  unconscious 
world  of  men  went  on. 

Horrible  bad  books,  poor  innocent  books,  you 
are  lying  there  still ;  covered,  perhaps,  with  mud 
by  this  time,  with  only  a  stray  rag  of  your  sacking 
sticking  out  of  the  slime  into  the  opaque  brown 
tides.  Odes  to  Diana,  Sonnets  to  Ethel,  Dramas 
on  the  Love  of  Lancelot,  Stanzas  on  a  First 
Glimpse  of  Venice,  you  lie  there  in  a  living  death, 
and  your  fate  is  perhaps  worse  than  you  deserved. 
I  was  harsh  with  you.  I  am  sorry  I  did  it.  But 
even  if  I  had  kept  you,  I  will  certainly  say  this  :  I 
should  not  have  sent  you  to  the  soldiers. 


256 


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